Tales of artisans whose traditional craft is shaped by the colours of Scilly
This publication is a collaborative effort between the Islands’ Partnership, its member community and a talented set of individuals with their own narratives and expertise.
EDITOR Amanda Bond
DESIGN thompsondesign.co
WORDS Clare Hargreaves
PHOTOS Tom Young
PRINT Deltor
From a daily motorway commute in the rain to beachcombing on the quiet sandy beaches of Bryher, Alex finally finds time and space for her own work.
LOCATION
The Potting Shed, Bryher 49.95361° N, 6.35265° W
FIND OUT MORE @alexbagnallillustrator
Menacing skies that rain fish, a hapless dog who gets lost in a dark wood, zebras in a boat that rocks between two perilous waves, and island cats with attitude… Welcome to the fantastical world of illustrator Alex Bagnall.
Pop into her seaside studio on the storm-lashed south coast of Bryher and you can join in the fun. Inside, her whimsical, infinitely detailed, illustrations adorn the walls and cram the pages of sketchbooks. Those jostle for space with watercolour seascapes, pen and ink architectural drawings, and colourful plastic flotsam that Alex combs from her local beaches then paints in aid of Surfers Against Sewage.
“My studio is like the inside of my brain,” says Alex, who trained in Fine Art at Cardiff. “It’s chaotic and messy, but that’s how I like it. I suffer from Too Many Ideas syndrome! It can be a bit much sometimes!”
Messy or not (look closer and it’s actually highly organised mess) the studio, just a pebble’s throw from Great Par Beach, has one of the loveliest locations in Scilly. From the window Alex sees waves crashing over jagged rocks that erupt from the ocean, sultry summer suns sinking below the horizon,
and silver sands with scarcely a soul. It might sound corny, but the studio is a dream come true. Seven years ago, Alex was living and working in the Welsh valleys, doing a child protection job that was proving incredibly stressful. A friend asked her what her dream would be if she could change her life. Alex was craving space, and sea, and had spent many holidays in Scilly. So she replied “To be an illustrator on the Isles of Scilly.” By a stroke of luck, her sister bought and renovated a house at Great Par and converted the stone shed in the garden into a house for Alex. She also revamped the timber-clad studio next to it so that she could work here. Alex’s dream became reality. “The beach still thrills me,” she says. “I have to pinch myself to believe that I really have the ocean at the bottom of my garden.”
Bryher’s rugged shore and perilous seas inspire much of Alex’s art, whether it’s illustrations spawned by her imagination, or watercolours in which she combines watery brush strokes with black ink and pastels. The watercolours are hugely popular with visitors, but for Alex, they take a back seat to her numerous other projects, which include a novel, and a screenplay which she’s writing with her daughter. Ø
If you’re looking for a commercial artist who churns out paintings in winter to sell in summer, Alex is not your woman. In fact, she’s at the opposite end of the spectrum. She paints for herself, so “hates commissions – it’s like selling your soul”. When it comes to seascapes she never paints from photographs. “I always sit outside and paint by looking, so you’ll sometimes see rain drops splattering my paintings,” she says. “I love the rocks and the gaps between them and the sky. I paint because I have the urge to look, not because I want to sell. If people want to buy they can, but that’s not why I do it.”
Ever versatile, Alex has recently been experimenting with other artistic projects. One is her tiny black ink drawings of architecture in cities she’s recently visited, including London and New York. “There’s not much architecture on Bryher, so it’s a novelty seeing cranes and skyscrapers,” she says. “I do the drawings on the train home, then mount them together in a single frame.” Sadly, none are currently for sale.
Alex’s alphabet cards have also proved a hit. She’s done A-Zs of cakes,
birds, and Bryher landmarks. Also popular are her cards featuring Bryher’s cats, including her own characterful cat Rose whom many visitors will remember. Rose died in 2023, so is given a pair of wings. Cat cartoons, incidentally, often add a touch of fun to the boat timetable boards that Alex updates in the season.
The core of Alex’s work, though, is her illustration. Back in 2019 Alex illustrated a book called Walking Stories, commissioned by the Islands’ Partnership and featuring stories about each of the five islands by well-known authors (including Michael Morpurgo writing about Bryher). Since then she’s created the illustrations (and words) several (as yet unpublished) children’s books. As ever these use sombre greys, feature naïve animals such as a universal dog, and have a prevailing sense of doom. Repeated motifs, such as tiny waves inside vast tidal ones, or raindrops or stars in the sky, are a constant feature too. “There’s comfort in repetition,” says Alex. Above all, her illustrations are utterly enchanting, placing her right up with Britain’s finest book illustrators. ¯
LOCATION Phoenix Craft Studios, Porthmellon, St. Mary's 49.91615° N, 6.30786° W FIND OUT MORE
www.emilymarywoventextiles.com
Gorse flower, lavish, heather orchid…. They sound like names of luxury shower gels or racehorses. In fact, they’re the names given to the vivid wool colours that textiles designer Emily Shaw is playing with to recreate Tresco’s wild gorse- and heather-clad northern tip.
She shows me postage-stamp-sized wool samples lined up on a page in the precious black sketchbook where she plots her ideas for new fabrics. Soft pinks sit alongside maroons and yellows, and a steely silver representing Tresco’s granite walls and Cromwell’s Castle. Below the colour swatches are Emily’s pencil markings calculating the maths of it all. The page is so pretty it’s a work of art in itself.
“Just as photographers see views as photographs, I see them as fabrics,” says Emily, in her early thirties. “I try to translate the colours that I see in the landscape into a woven textile. It can be a challenge but when it works it’s one of the most satisfying feelings there is. The feeling of unwinding the finished fabric off the loom is unbeatable.”
Pop to Emily’s workshop, opposite Porthmellon Beach on St. Mary’s, and you can see for yourself the results of her creative scribblings – beautiful woven items in her Tresco Heather collection which range from glasses cases to cushions and bags. “Pinks were a new departure for me,” she says. “But people love them.”
Her signature collection is her Atlantic range, using rich turquoises and bold blues mirroring the seas around her. “My favourite wool colours are azure and another that’s called Atlantic Spray, which I think were made for Scilly,” smiles Emily. (Look out too for coral, representing the buoys, which she weaves in as streaks). “I just love the names. There’s even a greenish one called Zomp, that I want an excuse to use!” She makes a Lichen collection too, combining mustards and granite silvers, and another called Regatta, using yacht sails as a motif. The latter sells well in the summer when the yachties arrive, she says.
The art of translating landscapes into textiles is something Emily learned on a visit to the Isle of Harris, famous for its tweed, while studying for a degree in textiles at Manchester School of Art. “I only had to look at the mountains, sandy shores and seaweeds to see where their tweeds got their colours from.” Those tweeds inspired Emily’s final university project, using her own fabric - a man’s jacket that she gave to her twin brother Joe.
Brought up in a family of creatives (her father is a fine artist, her mother studied graphic design), Emily always knew she’d be one too. Right up until the end of her first year at university she thought she would work in print design, but once she realised the extent to which woven textiles could also involve colour, pattern and design, Ø
and “looked cool”, she switched to crafting them. She loved using natural materials, especially lambswool, which is what she weaves today, sourced mainly from a mill in Aberdeenshire.
“Handweaving is a traditional skill that’s on its way out,” says Emily. “So when I left university I felt I couldn’t not carry on doing it. I wanted to follow an old tradition and give it a contemporary style. But it’s very labour intensive, and the raw materials are expensive, so it’s not surprising that few people are weaving commercially today.”
With a first-class degree under her belt Emily started selling her textiles at markets across the UK. But she says she would probably not be where she is today were it not for the help of The Prince’s Trust which provided her with a mentor who gave her business coaching. “That was just before Covid,” she says. “I then spent the first months of lockdown weaving textiles at home in Loughborough. I had plenty of time to explore and experiment so it was a very happy time for me.”
Then, in the summer of 2020, her partner was offered a teaching job on Scilly – which neither he or Emily had ever previously visited – so the couple took the plunge (Emily without even seeing the islands) and moved to St. Mary’s. The following year Emily and her loom moved into the top floor of Phoenix Craft Studios, where she wove and sold her textiles. “People
love watching how I work. I encourage them to touch the yarns and textiles as it’s such a nice tactile experience,” she says.
She also sells at Tresco Makers’ Market, where she enjoys the interaction with visitors. “I adore chatting,” she says. “People often don’t realise that I make my fabrics by hand.” The monthly market is held along the quay wall, so unsurprisingly perhaps, it’s her Atlantic collection that sells best.
Emily admits that getting the balance between creative expression and business can be tricky. “For me, making textiles is a business so I have to sell them. I aim to make ‘practical pieces of art’, that can be used and that will last a long time. I have a purse that I made just after leaving art college and it’s still “in good nick”.”
But weaving also feels creative and therapeutic, she says. “Time flies when I’m at the loom. It’s rhythmical, like a meditation. I use both my hands and feet, so it’s like a mini workout. You have to concentrate one hundred per cent and think about nothing else. You feel great when the work is done.”
I ask about her business name – Emily Mary. Why not Emily Shaw? She smiles. “It’s simple. At university there was another Emily Shaw, so one of us had to change their name. I used my middle name Mary, and I’ve stuck with it ever since.” Emily also runs workshops which are advertised on her website. ¯
A daily dip revitalises and offers fresh inspiration for upcoming designs back at base in a rustic workshop.
LOCATION
Ashvale Farm, St. Martin’s 49.96583° N, 6.30172° W
FIND OUT MORE www.faypage.co.uk
How do you start your working week? If you work for jeweller Fay Page on St. Martin’s, it’s with a bracing dip off St. Martin’s flats, one of the island’s silver sand beaches in Lower Town. Sometimes one of the eight-strong team will return from the outing with a tiny cowrie shell or curiously shaped pebble that later in the day will inspire a charm or pendant. Everyone comes back invigorated, not just by the chilly waters but from the feeling of belonging to a team that’s almost a family. “The swim is part of the working day,” smiles Fay. “It might be unusual, but it helps achieve a worklife balance and brings us together.”
Warmed by coffee brewed by Fay’s husband Rob, also a jeweller, the team settle at the workbenches straddling two floors of a solid granite barn that used to be the packing shed at Ashvale Flower Farm. The whitewashed walls exhibit their creations, which all take their cue from the island. There are silver and gold Scillonian bees and starfish that make eye-catching pendants or earrings, and delicate moons that dangle from silver wrist chains, and slim silver bracelets, frosted to resemble sand. Wedding rings are made to
commission too. “Everything we do is a celebration of our love for Scilly,” says Fay.
It’s not just the jewellery that’s inventive. So are the wooden display cases that are crafted from old ship’s timbers to resemble old flower packing boxes. On the walls, St. Agnes cabinetmaker Piers Lewin has fashioned wooden boxes resembling printers’ letterpress trays. And packing materials – all fully compostable with no ink or glue - are a work of art too. Jewellery pieces rest on a bed of felt made from Lake District wool, topped with layers of recycled coloured cardboard that create an image of the islands viewed from the sea. The top sheet is imprinted with the ‘hallmark’ of the member of staff who created the item.
Fay has loved Scilly all her life, having visited every childhood holiday. Aged eight, then living in Yorkshire, she declared she was going to live there. As a teenager she worked summers in Scilly and at the age of 25 finally fulfilled her dream by moving to St. Mary’s, then, two years later, to St. Agnes.
Fay had dabbled in jewellery while studying drama in London, but it Ø
was not until she was 27 that she considered it as a career. Fay was unwell so was unable to continue her job at the council and was looking for an occupation to fill her time. A friend, silversmith Sophie Hooper, suggested joining her on a three-week jewellery-making course in Ireland. They went, and Fay returned not just with some beautiful pieces (like a tiny silver flipflop, which she still keeps on her bench) but the determination to make jewellery her livelihood.
Fay bought some basic tools and started making shell and pebble jewellery in the bedroom of her tiny home. Then she met Rob, who was a boatman on St. Martin’s, and moved her workshop to St. Martin’s. In 2010, Fay took over the tenancy of Ashvale Farm.
The team grew. First Fay was joined by Rob, who had by now given up the boats and discovered a natural talent for jewellery making. “It’s a great partnership,” says Fay. “I have ideas, Rob is the one who makes them happen. He’s now a better jeweller than me.” Others came on board, all contributing their individual skills and personalities. “Originally the business was about the things I loved about Scilly. Now it’s about providing employment and a living wage all year
round for people who live on the island. I’m immensely proud that I now have eight on the pay roll.”
Alongside teamwork, another secret of the business’ success is its versatility. The gold- and silverware is small so can easily be posted once it’s been ordered online. A walk or bike ride up to the post office in Higher Town is one of the team’s daily rituals. Christmas is obviously a busy time – and January too, after people see friends being given Fay Page jewellery and want some too. “We always expect a lull after Christmas but it never happens,” smiles Fay. “The jewellery seems to advertise itself.”
Other customers delight in choosing Fay’s jewellery in person and in summer the shop gets seriously busy.
“Often people drop in after they’ve arrived on a tripper boat, choose a charm and leave their wrist chain with us to attach it, then pick it up before getting the boat back at the end of the day. The chains take 20 charms but we’ve had customers who have bought 27! They like interacting with the people who have crafted it, and once they get back home to the mainland, enjoy having a little piece of Scilly that they cherish as much as we do.” ¯
Great Bay, St. Martin's
From a buyer in Harrods department store to potter extraordinaire - 50 years on and still going strong.
LOCATION
Old Town Lane, Old Town, St. Mary’s 49.91538° N, 6.29596° W
FIND OUT MORE www.johnbourdeaux.co.uk
Few visitors to Scilly will not have met John Bourdeaux, one of Scilly’s best loved artists, with 50 years of potting under his belt. His handsome granite barn studio on the outskirts of Old Town, surrounded by daffodil fields, is a must-visit on any tour of St. Mary’s.
But that lustrous career was born of seemingly inauspicious beginnings. At boarding school in Truro he spent his art classes playing chess, and at 15 he ran away to London (with no qualificiatons) where he got a job as a buyer in the Christmas department of Harrods. Subsequently forced to move back to St. Mary’s to take over the family shop at the age of 20, he decided to give potting a go – despite being told as a boy that he was hopeless at art.
“If you’d told my parents that one day I’d be an artist they’d have laughed,” he says. But back on St. Mary’s, he “needed a challenge” so began playing with clay.
As random as that spell at Harrods sounds, it demonstrated a skill that John had developed ever since being sent off to boarding school at the age of eight - how to survive by fearlessly reinventing himself. “I’ve always had a go-for-it mentality. When I ran away to London I wrote to Harrods to ask them for a job and they offered me an apprenticeship. It took a while to get the hang of it. At first I got taxis to work as I didn’t know how to use the tube.”
John’s knack of self-reinvention would serve him well over the decades ahead.
While minding the family shop (still in Hugh Town today but now under new ownership), he met potter Humphrey Wakefield who taught him to make pots and fired them for him. “Luckily there was no competition between us, he just encouraged me,” says John, who soon bought a wheel and a few years later, restored a ramshackle stone barn in Old Town to use as a studio.
John knew he needed further training so sent himself off to art college in Bournemouth. But the teaching was lacklustre, and instruction in how to sell art non-existent, so he only lasted a term – something for which he’s always been thankful. “If I’d followed the college route my pottery would have been like everyone else’s and I’d never have survived,” he says. “I learned to do things my way rather than listening to others. People can like or dislike my pottery, but they can’t compare it.” Visit John’s studio and you’ll see what he means – colours and shapes are total one-offs. In his words, “I make weird things that are different. There’s nothing standard here.”
Establishing himself as a commercial potter wasn’t easy. John had by now married and the couple, living in rented accommodation, were surviving on fifty pounds a week. John rose at six and started making models of birds, animals and whatever else came to Ø
mind. “I knew I had to make it work,” he says. “I had to survive, and sell stuff. I had nowhere to hide.”
Happily, visitors supported him and “came along for the ride.” One day he had strips of clay left over so formed them into totem poles. He gave them “bullshit” topical names such as Oil Strike and Harold Wilson (a local resident and friend). “I told visitors they were fertility symbols and out they flew. One woman even attributed her pregnancy to one of my poles!” Soon John was exporting them worldwide. One, found in a Swindon house clearance, sold at auction for over a grand - more than all the remaining contents.
Drawing on Scilly’s wildlife, John branched into stoneware puffins with vivid orange beaks. “I made one and it sold well, so I made fifty and they all went. For the next 40 years I made a hundred a year. Puffins were followed by cormorants and terns, the latter captioned with tags such as “one good tern deserves another.” He taught himself to make porcelain too.
Visitors flocked to the studio, attracted as much by John’s friendly and self-deprecating personality as by his quirky pottery. For his part, John drew on an important life skill that he’d learned among the Christmas tinsel and baubles at Harrods – how to sell. “I love selling, it’s exhilarating,” he smiles. “But I never force people to buy. The secret of selling is not to mind whether they do or not.”
John also attributes his success to the dreamy location of his pottery. “People love the whole ambiance of Scilly, and the simple way of life here. My pottery fits into that – it’s honest and unpretentious, people appreciate that.”
Visitors became friends. They brought their children and grandchildren, many of whom have been sending John cards for decades. John loved the friendships, but there was a snag: they all owned his signature puffins and totem poles. They needed something new. It was time to reinvent himself again.
By chance, a Christmas carol service in Truro cathedral showed him the way forward. The cathedral was full so John couldn’t attend the service and was forced to wander the streets instead. He stumbled across a craft shop in a side street selling lustreware - pottery that uses a metallic glaze (often gold or platinum) that gives the effect of iridescence. Lustreware would be his next challenge, he decided.
“It was hard, as I didn’t know what I was doing and it needs five or six different firings,” he recalls. “A woman who had worked in the potteries in Stoke on Trent came in to the studio and gave me some tips. Somehow it works and people buy it. They love the vivid colours.”
John may be approaching eighty, but he’s not showing signs of quitting his potter’s wheel any time soon. He may have several reinventions in him still. ¯
Ellie moved to Tresco with her family aged two and by the time she was nine had become attached to a very special toy: a disposable camera. She took it everywhere, snapping everything from tame songthrushes in the garden to boats bobbing on the island’s turquoise waters. Photography was definitely a favourite hobby.
After studying physiotherapy at university Ellie moved back to Tresco where she worked first in the shop (where she met her partner, Sam), then in the island office. Meanwhile, she was posting her landscape photography on social media - and getting noticed. Then, pregnant with her second child during the pandemic, she dreamed up the idea of creating a Tresco calendar showcasing some of her best images.
“I always seem to have wild ideas when I’m pregnant,” laughs Ellie. “I mentioned the calendar idea to Kate Moore, who oversees the shop, and asked if she would sell it. She agreed, then suggested greetings cards and postcards too. The Estate was very encouraging.”
Almost accidentally, Ellie had started a business. While photography was her first love, it wasn’t easy to get around during the pandemic so she taught herself graphic design by surfing YouTube videos and buying the relevant computer packages. “I had no clue what a vector was when I started, now I speak the language!” She used her new-found digital design skills
to produce place mats and coasters depicting Scilly’s famous pilot gig rowers or puffins, as well as wooden postcards which proved an instant hit. She started designing fabrics too.
Managing to earn a livelihood at the same time as caring for two toddlers was great, but Ellie gained equal satisfaction from the feedback she received from visitors. “When I post off products that people have ordered online I always enclose a note and it’s lovely getting their replies. One woman I wrote to replied that she was having a bad week and the calendar I’d sent her had made her smile. You don’t know the value of what you’re doing until you get comments like that.”
Another pregnancy, another wild idea. “Pregnancy insomnia meant I had plenty of time to think,” says Ellie. Her next idea, hatched as her third child was forming, was truly ambitious – a family board game based on Scilly. Players choose to land by sea or air, then race each other around the islands to be the first to collect six postcards. Of course there are obstacles along the way, such as fog and livestock roadblocks, as visitors and locals know only too well.
As soon as the kids were in bed, Ellie and Sam spent winter nights playing the game, praying they’d manage to finish before one of the children woke. Tresco neighbours were presented with mockups packed in cardboard boxes and asked to road-test them. Printing the game was not cheap so Ellie
launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter which she publicised on Facebook. “I needed £6K, my target was £2K and amazingly I raised £3.5K in just 48 hours. It was really gratifying,” she says. “I then approached the Tresco Estate to see if they would place a copy of the game in every holiday cottage – there are a hundred. They agreed, so that helped make up the shortfall.”
Ellie enjoyed the success, although it still felt a bit unreal. “I realised I was good at business and had a real drive. But I had to pinch myself to believe it as no-one in my family had run businesses before.”
But there was one thing missing, and that was contact with the public. Working alone at home could be lonely. There was an impressive number of creatives on Tresco but they weren’t really visible as an artistic community. So in 2021, Ellie came up with the idea of a Makers’ Market, where island makers could interact with the public and sell their wares – outdoors along the New Grimsby sea wall if it was fine, or inside the Flying Boat café if it was wet. Ellie got the green light from Tresco and in June she and around nine fellow creatives erected stalls outside Ellie’s granite cottage. “I was quite nervous as it was the first time we’d met the public, and we were still in the pandemic. But interest proved huge and visitors loved meeting the islanders,” she says. “We had planned to run just two markets but after the success of the first we
decided to run them monthly and to invite makers from other islands too. They’re now a regular fixture during the season.”
The market is not short of talent. From Tresco, Fiona Hufton (who by day works in the accounts office) displays her pit-fired pots, which you’ll have seen her crafting on the quay at New Grimsby. Emily Parsons sells her sketches, and jewellery, using recycled silver and sea glass foraged from Tresco’s shores, while Jasmine Melley (like Ellie, a mother of three) brings along washbags, purses and aprons that she crafts from fabrics that are often designed by Ellie.
Weather permitting, makers travel over from St. Mary’s and Bryher to sell their wares at the market too. Look out for resin earrings by Kerry Hulands and pottery fish and watercolours by Alex Bagnall, on Bryher. Makers from St. Mary’s include Maisie Humphries, who handmakes sustainable items using traditional dyeing techniques and prints t-shirts made from sustainable cotton, and Emily Shaw, who hand weaves contemporary fabrics inspired by Scilly.
“The market has a youthful vibe which makes it different from many others,” says Ellie. “At lot of us are millennials with pregnant bellies and baby bouncers.”
Watch this space to see what Ellie comes up with next. One thing is for sure: she won’t be standing still. ¯
After time spent managing a small holding and a B&B, a sudden injury launches new career as an artist.
LOCATION
Golden Eagle Studio, Bryher 49.95361° N, 6.35265° W
FIND OUT MORE www.bryherartist.com
Artist Richard Pearce’s life is so closely bound with the sea it’d be no surprise to find salt water running through his veins. He hears, watches and paints it in all its many moods, he lives just metres from the jagged-toothed rocks of Bryher’s stormlashed west coast, and over the years he’s picked up his fair share of ‘treasure’ from Scilly’s many shipwrecks.
Not surprisingly, Richard’s studio is just a pebble’s throw from the sea too. In fact, move it a metre or two forwards and it would be on Bryher’s Great Par Beach. The granite-walled shed was built in the 19th century to house the Golden Eagle pilot gig. It had been abandoned for decades until, with the Duchy of Cornwall’s permission, Richard restored it. Cash and materials were scarce, but the universe provided: a storm stripped a passing ship of its cargo of building planks, so Richard used them to give the studio a roof.
As studios go, it’s hard to beat. The small wooden door from the island’s sandy shoreside track is clad in giant waxy aeoniums which threaten to engulf it. Step inside and through the window at the far end you gaze at some of Richard’s inspirations - Great Par’s azure waters and mighty rocks such as Castle Bryher. The transparent light is any artist’s dream. All around, paint brushes in jam jars and half-finished canvases jostle for space with cards and finished paintings.
Just being here is an experience in itself.
Typically, Richard’s paintings are characterised by turquoise seas, a shard of silver sand and a yacht. They’re pared down, simple, idealised. They have certainly proved popular over the years, with Ikea having turned his paintings into postcards and The Art Group publishing them all over the world. If you’re on Bryher, you’ll see them on the walls of the Hell Bay Hotel, and you can buy them direct from Richard’s studio or from Bryher’s gallery.
Richard loves watching the changing light and colours, then translating their essence onto the canvas. “By honing everything down to the most minimal, a painting takes on a life of its own,” he says. “A sand bar, a simple shard of sand striking through the shallows, that’s enough.”
What about the days when it’s blowing a hooli and the sea is whipped up into galloping white horses? “I paint those too,” he says. “But people don’t like those paintings so much. I guess I’ve become known for the ‘Walls ice cream colours’ –turquoise and cream – that most visitors associate with Scilly.”
At the end of a day’s painting in the studio, Richard does the daily commute home – a one-minute amble or dash (depending on the weather) across the beach to the School House, once inhabited by the island’s schoolteacher. Teetering on the rocks, the building’s
relationship with the sea is as intimate as the studio’s. “From the porch we can hear the tug of the tide on the stones and the cries of the oystercatchers,” he says. “The sea regularly comes over the garden wall. We’ve even had seals coming in.”
If the sea runs through Richard’s veins, so does Scilly. The Pearce family have inhabited the archipelago since the 1830s. One of six siblings, Richard was born not on Bryher but on St. Mary’s. During his childhood, off-islands such as tiny Bryher, which then had no electricity or cars, seemed a world away. But eventually, wife in tow, he moved to the wild one-milelong island of just 92 residents.
Richard initially worked not as an artist but as a crofter. “Our smallholding on Bryher had the biggest herd on the island – five cows and two pigs. We milked the cows in what is now the Crab Shack at Hell Bay. In summer, we sold the milk to the island’s bed and breakfasts and to the campsite – we’d leave out churns with people’s initials on them, to collect. To make ends meet, we also ran a B&B and grew tatties and daffodils.”
The switch to painting was – literally – an accident. There had been a shipwreck and Richard and other islanders were scrambling on the rocks to recover its cargo of pit props to use as firewood. But Richard did his back in so was forced to spend the next few weeks flat on the floor gazing at the ceiling. “It
was the wrong kind of wrecking,” he laughs. The days felt long and Richard was itching to get back into the fields, so his wife and daughter brought him some oil paints to pass the time.
“My father was an artist and used oils, and I remember the house smelling of linseed oil when I was a child. He taught me and my siblings how to paint, and I’d done water colours as a hobby,” says Richard. “Once I started painting on Bryher I put on an exhibition at the community centre and to my amazement people bought my paintings.” His career as an artist was launched.
Initially he painted and sold his works at the house, but he found people reluctant to walk up the garden path. So the search for a studio began, with the ruined gig shed proving the perfect solution. After around 20 years Richard switched to acrylics, which had the advantage of drying faster than oils.
Now, over four decades on, Richard’s studio continues to be one of Bryher’s must-visit destinations. “I’m very lucky to live in a place that has so many visitors,” he says. “I sometimes try to break away from my signature ‘boat on a sand bar surrounded by turquoise sea’, but that seems to be what people want. People who came here on holiday and saw my paintings as kids return wanting to buy them for themselves. For them they’re pieces of nostalgia. I guess I can’t complain.”¯
A designer, maker, inspiring role model, and advocate for the arts with a passion for glass and its craft.
LOCATION
Phoenix Craft Studios, Porthmellon, St. Mary's
49.91615° N, 6.30786° W
FIND OUT MORE
Phoenix Stained Glass
Oriel Hicks lifts the lid of her dog-eared cardboard box with as much excitement as the rest of us might display when opening a box of posh artisan chocolates. Her eyes light up as she reveals its contents: scores of slightly irregular squares of coloured glass, tightly packed like After Eights.
“These are mouth-blown in Germany, just look at the lines and bubbles in them,” she exclaims, holding a rose-coloured one to the light. “They’re so gorgeous, they make me salivate. You almost want to eat them! I’ve always been obsessed with glass and light. And of course, here on Scilly we have the most fabulous ever-changing light, with a clarity that’s mind-blowing.”
Her favourite coloured glass? “Pink glass is gorgeous, and is the most expensive as it has gold in it,” she says, handing me a square that resembles a square slither of Turkish delight. “Reds and yellows are made with selenium, which makes them a bit opaque. But the blues, greens and turquoises are my favourites, inspired by the glass-clear aquamarine seas around me. They’re the colours I use most in my work.”
She shows me a commission she’s currently working on, a circular stained-glass window in blues and greens featuring two white doves for a private house in Cornwall. “The joy of stained glass is not just the glass itself but the coloured reflection it casts around it,” says Oriel. “That’s a thing
of incredible beauty, as more and more people are now realising.”
The place where Oriel’s glass magic happens is an industrial estate opposite Porthmellon Beach on St. Mary’s. “The workshop is called Phoenix Craft Studios as it rose out of the ashes, as it were, of a glass-blowing studio. That was in 1991. It doesn’t have beautiful views, but that’s probably a good thing as otherwise I might not get any work done at all. But it does have a fire station and ambulance next door, which is reassuring.”
Here Oriel not only designs, makes and displays (and sells) her work, but also inspires and supports other artists and designers who have studios in the same building as part of a cooperative. They include artist Maxine Bryher, textiles designer Emily Shaw, linocutter and ceramic decorator Vickie Heaney, silk painting artist Liz Askins, and Maisie Humphries who makes clothing items using sustainable materials and techniques. All happily receive visitors, and many run occasional workshops too.
Getting to this point in Oriel’s life has been quite a journey. She was brought up in Croydon, in Surrey. But from the age of seven her family holidayed in Scilly and from 14, she worked here every summer, doing jobs that ranged from lifting narcissus bulbs and planting cabbages to helping in guesthouses. She’d caught the Scilly bug.
At 16 Oriel forsook academic A levels to study Architectural Decoration at Reigate School of Art and Design
where she studied everything from mosaics, stained glass and calligraphy to sculpture and print making. “Before I left school my headteacher said ‘You’ll never make a living being an artist.’ But fortunately my parents, both teachers, encouraged me and said ‘Do what you love.’ And I did love every minute.”
Oriel developed an affinity to glass and learned how to craft it. “I loved manipulating coloured light. I was blown away just looking at the boxes of mouthblown glass samples in all their different colours.” In her thirties, she bagged her first major commission: a stained glass window for a church in her home town of Croydon, still there today.
She married – a Scillonian of course –and had children and eventually settled on St. Mary’s, where she was commissioned to make a stained glass window for the parish church. Oriel also learned to create Tiffany glass (developed in the US at the end of the 19th century by Louis Comfort Tiffany) and hot ‘fused’ glass which, as its name suggests, involves fusing pieces of glass at high temperature in a kiln. You’ll see plenty of the latter at the Phoenix Craft Studios, including vibrantly blue fused glass fruit bowls that at first glance look like splashed water. “They’re proving really popular,” says Oriel. “Fusing is a technique that wasn’t widely known when I was at college so I sent myself on a course to learn it in 2004. I love doing it – opening the kiln to see how it’s turned out is like having Christmas every day.”
Tour St. Mary’s and other islands and there’s a good chance you’ll stumble across Oriel’s architectural work. Her stained glass windows decorate the entrance doors to Hell Bay Hotel on Bryher, and churches on Bryher, St. Mary’s and St. Agnes. The two windows in the tiny church on the beach of Periglis in St. Agnes are particularly poignant, as one features two of her sons in a pilot gig. Tragically one of them had died the previous year. Also in the boat is another man who had died at his paddle and a St. Agnes boatman who drowned. So the window is a memorial to several deceased men. Oriel’s most visible – and perhaps most unlikely – work, is the humble shelter on the Strand in Hugh Town. “It was actually a happy accident,” smiles Oriel. “A mosaic was due to be created in front of the old museum. But then the decision was made to move the museum. As the money was still there, I looked around for an alternative place to do something creative. Toby Hicks, a lad from St. Agnes who was then doing work experience with me, cleverly suggested the shelter and we got the green light to use the mosaic money to make a huge stained glass window. I did the basic design and artists from all the islands contributed images to fill the panes which were shaped like the granite stones in St. Mary’s old quay. It was a truly collaborative effort and local people and visitors alike seem to love it.” ¯
A touch of nostalgia with a modern twist, Rat Bags creates canvas items that are made to last.
LOCATION
Thorofare, St. Mary’s
49.91498° N, 6.31549° W
FIND OUT MORE
www.ratisland.net/rat-bags-canvas-shop
Living on an island for all or much of their lives, Keith Buchanan and his wife Carol have boating in the blood. They sail a 54-foot ketch, Carol used to row in one of St. Mary’s eight wooden gigs, and Keith has been crafting canvas sails on the part of the quay in Hugh Town on St. Mary’s known as Rat Island for as long as he can remember.
In 1977, when Keith got a large commission to make an awning for a restaurant, he had a lot of canvas left over and was scratching his head for a way to avoid wasting it. He had a brainwave. He bought some 1955-made industrial sewing machines from his brother (also a sailmaker), made a bag from the leftover canvas and sold it. Rat Bags was born. “The name was the suggestion of a local doctor and seemed perfect so it stuck,” says Carol. “It makes people smile.”
Soon Carol, and her sister Helen (who joined later and now runs Rat Bags), were making a host of items out of their colourful canvas offcuts, from holdalls and hats to smocks and aprons. Each carried a label displaying a rat, the company’s logo, designed by a local artist. “The joy of canvas is that as it’s tightly woven it’s waterproof and incredibly strong so it can take a lot of use. I still use a bag that I made in 1986,”
says Carol. “People find it nostalgic too. It reminds them of their school bags when they were children.”
Over time, sailmakers like Keith stopped using canvas and switched to lighter man-made polyester, so Carol and Helen no longer use his offcuts and instead buy in their own vat-dyed canvas from a UK supplier. But they still avoid waste by using every morsel. Scraps are used for luggage labels, dog bowls or mobile phone holders. Some are even transformed into canvas art by employee Nancy Parsons, one of the team that now numbers five.
How does the canvas get to St. Mary’s? Like everything, by boat of course. But Helen and Carol don’t use anything as ordinary as a freight ship. Instead they often use Keith and Carol’s CT 54 ketch. “The boat winters at Mylor, so in spring we collect our annual supply of canvas from Penzance or Falmouth, cram it into the boat and sail it over,” says Carol. “It saves freight costs and means we have the boat here for the summer.”
Carol and Helen are both lifelong gig boat rowers and for two years in a row Helen held the title of veteran world champion. So both have always been painfully acquainted with a rower’s perennial complaint: sore backside. In 1987, Carol had the ingenious Ø
idea of using their canvas to make foam-filled rowing seats. They flew out of the shop. And although other companies have now jumped on the bandwagon, the seats (£58 apiece) remain one of their bestselling products, with many gig crews ordering sets to collect on arrival at the World Pilot Gig Championships that Scilly hosts in May.
Another brainwave was a heli-holdall that meets the specifications of Tresco’s helicopters which require soft luggage. Choose the colour of your bag, straps and zips. Holdall zips, like all of Rat Bags’ zips, are made from waterproof nylon rather than metal which would soon corrode in Scilly’s salty environment.
The team’s creative minds came up with other ideas too, like rudder-shaped shoulder bags that are a cross between a daysack and a money belt, and last year developed a cult following among the islands’ youngsters. Colourful Rat Packs are also popular, a cheery variation on standard back packs.
Given how robust canvas is, sewing it is not easy. Helen, who is Rat Bags’ chief seamstress, says learning how to operate the company’s heavy duty machines effectively and safely takes years. “I’ve been using them for thirty and I’m just starting to get good at it,” she laughs. “The canvas is so tough it can break the needles, so you need to be careful.”
Rat Bags is very much a family busi-
ness. Helen’s son Mikey and his girlfriend Nancy look after cutting, orders and serving customers. Dulcie, who works as a seamstress, is girlfriend of Keith and Carol’s son Jake. “There’s a lot of pressure to grow the business, but we want to remain a small family business” says Carol. “We don’t have the space to get any larger anyway.” That, perhaps, explains the low-key “Canvas Shop” sign outside the store located down an alley off Hugh Town’s main street. Only the eagle-eyed find it.
Rat Bags’ products can be ordered online (which accounts for around a quarter of sales) but for visitors and locals who manage to find the shop, half of the fun is visiting it and watching the stuff being made. The array of colourful merchandise is a feast for the eyes and the team are happy to take on commissions, big or small, such as mending a tent or a jacket zip or altering a pair of trousers. The smell of the canvas, rather like that of leather, is mesmerising too. But perhaps the shop’s biggest draw is the breathtaking view of St. Mary’s Harbour and Town Beach through the windows at the far end. As the Singer machines sing, staff and customers alike can watch the tripper boats departing for other islands and waves crashing over St. Helen’s rocks in the distance. It’s a fitting backdrop for a company that’s all about the sea. ¯
Chris Hall Photography
Chris Hall Photography UK
Chris Perry
Artist
Elm Studio
Old Town, St. Mary’s
Emma Bailey
Arts & craft workshops (Scillonia Reclaimed)
scilloniarc@gmail.com
Gemma Pearce Art
gemmapearceart.co.uk
@gemmapearceart
John Bourdeaux Pottery
johnbourdeaux.co.uk
01720 422025
Rachel Greenlaw
Author
@rachelgreenlaw_
Rat Bags Canvas Shop
ratisland.net
@ratbagscanvasshop
01720 422037
Silver Street Gallery
stevesherris.com
01720 422722
Sophie Hooper
Jewellery
sophiehooper.co.uk
@sophiehooperjewellery
Tamarisk Gallery
tamariskscilly.co.uk
@tamariskscilly
01720 422334
Porthmellon, St. Mary’s
phoenixcraftstudios
01720 422900
Emma Humphries
Handmade items
@popplestonestudio
Emily Shaw
Woven textiles
emilymarywoventextiles
Liz Askins
Silk painter
scillyscarves
Maisie Humphries
Traceless designs
@tracelessdesigns
Maxine Bryher
Artist
@maxine_bryher_artist
Oriel Hicks
Glass artist
Phoenix Stained Glass
Thrifty Pixie
Lesley Anne
Vickie Heaney
Print maker
@vickieheaney
Porthloo, St. Mary’s
Chris Garratt
Painter & printmaker
@chrisgarrattpaintings
Peter MacDonald Smith
Abstract artist
petermacdonaldsmithabstract.co.uk
Scilly Gems
scillygems
Susan Seddon
Scilly Socks
Gallery Tresco
tresco.co.uk/gallery
@gallerytresco
01720 424925
Island Images
Island gifts & Photography
ellietabron.com
@ellietabron
Bryher Jasmine
Handmade gifts
@bryherjasmineshop
Emily Parsons
Seaglass jewellery & recycled silver
@ennorstore
Fiona Hufton
Pottery & painting
fionahufton.com
Agnes Chapman Wills
Linoprint & cards
@agnes.makes
Scilly Attic Sewist
Stitched items
@scillyatticsewist
The Island Press
Pressed seaweed
@the_island_press
Kylie Combellack
Wax melts
Hoolicrafts
Handmade gifts
Golicza Balasz
Crocheted toys
Fay Page
Handmade jewellery
faypage.co.uk
@faypagescilly
Middletown Barn
Art & produce
@middletown.barn
Ingart Designs
Artist
ingart.co.uk
@ingart.co.uk
Potbuoys Gallery
potbuoysgallery.uk
@potbuoysgallery
01720 423932
Lou Simmonds Pottery
seagull2@btinternet.com
Wood Tattoos
woodtattoos.uk
@scilly_woodtattoos
Bryher Gallery
bryhergallery.com
@bryhergallery
Alex Bagnall Illustrations
@alexbagnallillustrator
Richard Pearce Artist
bryherartist.com
@bryherartist
01720 423665
“My studio is like the inside of my brain … it’s chaotic and messy, but that’s how I like it.”
Alex Bagnall
“People love watching how I work. I encourage them to touch the yarns and textiles as it’s such a nice tactile experience.”
Emily Shaw
“If I’d followed the college route, my pottery would have been like everyone else’s and I’d never have survived.”
John Bourdeaux
“I guess I’ve become known for the ‘Wall’s ice cream colours’ –turquoise and cream – that most visitors associate with Scilly.”
Richard Pearce
“The swim is part of the working day … it might be unusual, but it helps achieve a work-life balance and brings us together.”
Fay Page
“I’ve always been obsessed with glass and light. And of course, here on Scilly we have the most fabulous ever-changing light, with a clarity that’s mind-blowing.”
Oriel Hicks