Since the end of last year I have been creating work in my newly-built studio and, now that it is almost complete, I wanted to share with you what it looks like and how it’s changed and wonderfully expanded my practice.
Back when I converted the water tower in 1995, the government had introduced a scheme whereby if you converted a building, you got the VAT back on all your materials. The rebate gave me enough money to have a single-storey wooden building constructed next to the house, a double garage with a workshop on the end which was where I had a studio. It wasn’t heated, it got flooded and mouse infested and it wasn’t big enough for what I wanted to do, and as a result I spent a long time just fiddling about while making rather than taking it seriously. So, in 2024, I decided it was time to embark on a really great new building, with the help of my architect friend, Adrian Baynes, and give myself a professional space to create in.
Secondhand furniture and the reclaimed wooden floor.
The result is incredible. It’s a much larger space than I’ve ever had as a studio. It’s lined with huge windows which means it’s full of the most beautiful light – it feels like being in a tree house because I’m so connected with all the nature that’s outside, and all the spring greenery just fills me with complete wonder and joy. Having such an amazing studio has liberated me completely. I’m at an age now where I’m not so worried about what people think, I just want to play, I want to explore and experiment, I want to have an adventure, and this studio has really helped help me to engage in that way with my materials and my approach to my work.
The view from the windows connects me to nature.
My studio is split into two rooms on the top floor of a two-storey building: one room is very much a working studio, the wet studio and a space for doing other things like weaving, and the other is intended to be versatile so that it can be used for yoga days, as a gallery space, artist residences or exhibitions in the future, enabling me to work with other people within the community. It has enough space, too, to accommodate the facilities for me to do every aspect of my work: I’m dyeing, wet felting on the new metal tables, and the studio ceiling is extra high so that I can fix big tapestry frames on the walls and make sculptural pieces. The scale of it is enabling me to do much larger work which is where I am so at home, so much so in fact that I’m almost growing out of the studio already. I want to grow and make more and more large work – but where am I going to put them when I’ve made them all?
A cosy corner for rest and research.
Work in progress and useful materials.
Building it has also opened me up to a new, finite body of work as I was so shocked by the incredible amount of waste that was created in its construction, even though I tried to be eco-conscious about every phase of it. It inspired me to start making a body of work called ‘Ian’s Waste’, named after my builder, combining natural fibres with man-made materials to try and raise awareness of treating the earth lightly and caring for our planet.
It was built within the nature-first ethos of my work and my approach to life which means it’s sustainable wherever possible, right down to how we rehomed the old wooden garage: it was really important to me that it was reused so I was very happy when I managed to find a builder and his wife, who’s an artist, take it away to give it a second life. The new building has a timber frame, the insulation upstairs is made from hemp which was grown in Lincolnshire, and the wooden, multi-coloured floor in the studios is reclaimed from a gym complex. We have 32 solar panels, 16 of which go straight back into the grid and make us money and the other 16 go into a battery that feeds both the house and the new building so, on a good day, we’re carbon neutral.
The outside of the timber-frame studio.
I also insisted on having a big hole dug out and a big tank put in to collect the water off the roof and that grey water gets used for the loo in the studio, for washing clothes and for watering the garden. This year, though, there’s been so little rain that we ran out this of the water in that tank by mid-April. The sink is from eBay, some of the tables are from Tresham Art College, another came from a friend who had an upholstery business. And we’re still trying to use up bits and pieces – we’ve made shelves, a trolley and bookshelves out of wood that was left over from the build. There are still more things to do but I’m so inspired by the impact it’s already had on the direction of my work. I can’t wait to see what I create next.