A Corner of the Studio

I’VE FINALLY got there with my interior re-design, spending most of the day getting my shelves up in their new position and filling them with books. They really look good; an artwork, of sorts, in their own right. I’m now ready for the joiner to start on constructing my new slimline plan chest/working surface.

The pen and ink sketch is another from one of my 1978 sketchbooks, from the period immediately after I left art college when I lived in the flat. I’m not so keen on artful clutter these days, although even in my new studio I have a green Lyles Golden Syrup tin full of pens on my desk right next to the computer. I’m pretty sure that this the smaller of the two in my drawing.

Also in the drawing: the blue Thermos flask which I took on my travels around Britain in 1979-80 when I produced my sketchbook for Collins publishers. Between that and the coconut is a mug that Mr MacAdam, the pottery and general studies tutor at Batley School of Art, made for me in c. 1969, to demonstrate the processes involved. Sadly that hasn’t lasted as long as the treacle tin. The Muffin the Mule tin half hidden in the background once contained Huntley and Palmers mini iced biscuits (each coin-sized biscuit had a tuft of hard icing on it). The fruit bowl (in walnut?) was hand-turned by my mum at Mr Bailey’s evening class in Horbury in the early 1969s.

I still have the screwdriver. One of my dad’s which to my horror, I bent one day when I’d borrowed it. My dad was very particular about tools! But a bent screwdriver is so useful. I’ve probably used in more than anything else in the toolbox during the past 30 odd years.