Saga's Studio

Greenbelt 2011: Dreams of Home

We've  completed the arc welding in the studio.  The logo is a go-go!

Where does creativity happen?

Was reading the transcript of a talk that Malcom Gladwell made in November. (I'm going to include the part that I'm interested below the 'continue reading' break line with a link also to the whole talk)

He made some really interesting observations about how neighbourhoods foster creativity.

I realise that what I so enjoyed and appreciated about the RCA was being surrounded by other people who were also exploring and developing creative ideas, and the casual interactions that happened the cafe, bar and stairwells, how what they sometimes led to.

His observations make me excited about getting back into a communal studio, and make me wonder if the reason that Vaux lost its creative energy was that we simply didn't live close enough to eachother.

I've been trying to imaging where I'm going to live in coming years. I've always said that I want to live in London, in London proper, not a dead end suburb/green and pleasant royal london borough. In recent months, I started to wonder if having shed loads of space somewhere *else* might make me happier.  Reading through Gladwell's talk I'm thinking that perhaps it wouldn't. Today as we went for a drive down to Brighton and then on to Bexhill and Hastings via Cooden and Pevensey, where I saw ramshackled houses which were right on the beach and with separate garages at the end of each garden. There would be space to live and the garages couls be a workshop and there's light and the beach as a garden, and the sound of waves and all that and it's affordable. But I'm wondering that if I had all that space, but no creative friends to throw ideas around with or to knock about with, what would happen?  So I think it's back to roaming around dodgy parts of the inner city that I love, and hopefully we'll get lucky. We'll be the ones that find the pub that's died or the warehouse that the pigeons love.

Studio: Update

We've moved in and now it's carpentry a go go here.

I've been building shelves and workbenches. I've been sorting and storing. And soon I'll be able to get to work.

A New Studio!

 

 I'm thrilled to be moving into a new studio. It's an old textile print factory in South Bermondsey, London. I've moved in with a fellow RCA grad, James Winter, the photographer and designer Robert Croucher and new CSM  furniture grad Tom Ives.

It's in the middle of a mechanics and scaffolding yard, within cheering distance of Millwall Stadium. There is space a plenty and lots of light. I look forward to it being a place to get productive.