Squeezed Out

Well it's been hard to be attentive to posting whilst trying to work and facing eviction soon from my home and work place of 30 years. I will pay homage to an amazing building, home and community here another time especially as I realised how much my work has been influenced by this environment. 

 

I like watching the great tits nesting in our courtyard, I hope they won't be affected by gentrification and get squeezed out like us. But if they do it's probably easier for them to re-home themselves than us. These guys use this urn every spring and you hear the chicks go wild when the parent goes in with food.

                                                                                                          

I adore London, it's home for many decades but I really despair that it will become like Manhattan or Hong Kong: corporate and sterile. Soon there will be no affordable workspace for artists anywhere, no industrial yards, no curious unkempt corners, it will all be capitalised. 

So I enjoy the light filtering through our stairwells and courtyards whilst I can. I will miss it terribly. We did fight very hard to stay and after 3 visits to court and meeting some grown ups I hope never to have to deal with again I hope I never have cause to attend court ever again.

Making chandeliers makes me feel normal, I pick up the pliers join a few things and all feels right with the world or better; I must be lucky to have found something like that. There are so many rewards, like having my work hang over a Ron Arad table, even reflected in it. This article almost slipped by me but a friend saved it. The lovely house that I made this for was featured in the Times recently.

I have never wanted a fitted kitchen

In Shortlife Housing Co-ops life is very DIY. I bought my double stainless sink from a scrapyard for £5 many years ago and built a wooden frame for it. Our housing co-op now faces eviction. We will soon be in court and could lose our homes of 30 years.

In the photo below, you'll see that when I repainted the room a folk-arty blue I couldn't bring myself to lose the previous terracotta completely so I left these borders, nice no?, so much better than a full sweep of one colour and it keeps a little bit of history.

I had never wanted my place to be in a magazine, I love looking at other peoples but always felt private about my own. But then I photographed it because I had to start moving favourite things somewhere safer since the council threatened us with an injunction - that's 48hours to get out. This wasn't granted by the courts (twice) however it will be attempted again and the fear remains.

I love a slightly scruffy well evolved kitchen. I loathe anti-septic units, why do people want a kitchen like a hospital medicine cupboard? I always rather fancied living in an old fashioned railway carriage.