11 minute read
POWER OF PAINT
In this dressing room, the walls, floor, fireplace and trim are all coated in Blush by Little Greene, for a luxurious enveloping effect set against the darker shade of the bedroom
A cluster of small wooden cabinets painted in rich but muted shades of chalk paint become works of art on chalky painted walls P aint is accessible and easily achievable, a tool that anyone can use with zero experience or training and where the impact far outweighs the cost and time spent. Leaving aside the usual coat of paint on the walls, there are myriad ways to update your home using this versatile medium.
First of all, almost anything can be painted. Metal, wood, tile, ceramics, floors, ceilings – there is likely to be a suitable paint product for it.
There are many options for paints that are less harmful for both you and the environment, but my (admittedly unscientific) opinion is that using any paint to update a piece of furniture that would otherwise get dumped must surely outweigh the negatives. Some people are opposed to painting wood, whether it’s in the shape of furniture, doors or fireplaces. I am not one of those people. I certainly wouldn’t suggest coating a classic Ercol chair in high gloss, but there is so much brown furniture out there and charity shops and online marketplaces
The POWER
of PAINT
Words EMILY HENSON Photography CATHERINE GRATWICKE ©RYLAND PETERS & SMALL
In the Lyon family home, few surfaces are le unpainted. In the formal sitting room, Farrow & Ball’s Hague Blue provides a strong backdrop for Natasha’s collection of colourful vintage homewares and upholstery
A living room door is painted rich egg-yolk yellow, but the door frame has been le unpainted. The same yellow is used on the kitchen door frame just down the hall, linking the two rooms
are brimming with tired wooden chairs and tables of no particularly distinguished origin that can enjoy a whole new life with a lick of paint. Not everyone loves the look of bare wood, and for them there is paint.
I have a few favourite creative updates with paint. Painting old or unattractive radiators the same colour as the walls can make them disappear, while a contrasting colour will make them stand out. Paint internal doors with a pop of colour to make a statement, or link the colour palette of a series of adjoining rooms and hallways, so that the long view tells a story as well the room itself. If you’re feeling artistic, think about adding a border where the wall meets the ceiling or paint woodwork/trim a contrasting colour. Paint a panel of colour on the wall to create an interesting backdrop for a piece of art or a shelf. Paint is your go-to for instant impact, whatever your skill level.
Extract taken from Create by Emily Henson, published by Ryland Peters & Small (£25)
A simple trick to help radiators blend in is to paint them the same shade as the wall
All in the detail. A geometric design is painted on the walls of this high-ceilinged lo space, drawing the eye up to and framing a gallery of artwork
Wheel of FORTUNE
What made fashion journalist Deborah Brett change career for a new life in ceramics? Absolutely meets her
Words PENDLE HARTE
Q So what inspired you to start again, careerwise?
A It was something that was percolating in my mind for about 10 years or so – but I think that when you’re really successful at something and also you do it really well, then leaving that comfort of something that feels quite safe can be tricky. My fashion life is wonderful and I've had the most brilliant career over 25 years and it’s very enticing. I kept on trying to leave and it kept on pulling me back in. I’ve still got my little toe dipped into the fashion pond – I don’t know whether I could leave it completely.
Q And why ceramics?
A One of the reasons was that I needed a new challenge. I went to St Martins and studied fashion design and then from there I went into journalism, so I wanted to learn again. When you’re older you know how to do that – and I wanted to really immerse myself in it before I even decided what I want to do with it. So I spent six years just learning everything I could while still having a job (and three kids). The transition’s been really slow, but I haven’t wanted to rush it. Funnily enough, when I was at school there were things that I was really passionate about and one of them was my pottery class – I did it twice a week, but it wasn’t really obvious to me that it could be a career. When we had our career talks it was all about being a lawyer or a teacher. Now, creativity and ingenuity and entrepreneurship are really lauded and we’re allowed to do things that are di erent. It used to be that people stayed in their careers, their lives, their cities – but now we’re allowed to move.
Q So how did you start?
A My mother-in-law bought me a course for my birthday. It was local and on a Monday. I got the bug immediately and remembered what I’d loved so much. I spent time really refining the technique, then I bought another course, and then another one that was maybe a bit more challenging, then an evening one, then a whole day and eventually I did a Level 3 BTEC at my local adult education centre. That took one day a week, plus a day in the studio and I still did three days in my fashion job. I did that for a year, then I graduated and ended up doing a collaboration with lovely boutique hotel Thyme, who got in touch wanting me to do a collection based on their linen. It snowballed from there.
Q How would you define your style?
A It’s hard to find out what you want to do, so I believe in trying everything. During all my courses we really did everything – throwing, slipcasting, slab-building, handbuilding, mould-building, glazing. It’s a little bit reflective of what I’m like in my fashion career, because while most people are exclusively a writer or a stylist or a designer, when I was at The Times as deputy fashion editor, I wrote about fashion and also interiors, but I also did the fashion shoots. When I moved to magazines I also did the beauty shoots and the celebrity covers,
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so I am someone who loves a lot of things and the same can be said for my ceramics. My favourite things are hand building and glazing. I love the chemistry behind making my own glazes and the reactive process. It is fascinating, but also quite daunting and scary because of the unpredictability of it. I think if I only could do one thing I’d feel sad and a bit stifled. A lot of my pieces are a mixture of thrown and hand built and then I douse them in crazy glazes. It’s a bit of a mixture.
Q Your new collection of tableware uses a bubble technique. Tell us about that.
A Bubble technique is quite well known and looks relatively simple, but it has a layer of complexity underneath it. I spent a year figuring out how to make it work. It’s a process of what kind of clay and how you apply the glaze and when you fire it and how you fire it – there are lots of di erent elements. Then you throw on cobalt, which is really vivid. I branched out and tried green and pink, though pink took me two years because it just behaves di erently. The thing that I love about bubble glaze is the hand application, the fact that it comes from me blowing the bubbles and my breath. I call them flow bowls because they move
in the firing. Porcelain is very reactive to the heat: it remembers its shape and sometimes returns to it. So combine that fluidity with a glaze that you’re moving across the surface with your breath and I see it as reflective of the movement and unpredictability in life. So that’s the nub of my flow collection. I use a matt glaze in my personal pieces, with a gild edge, and in my tableware collection that’s a glossy transparent glaze so it’s food and dishwasher safe, and slightly more robust. I don’t use a lustre, so you can put it in the dishwasher; although they are decorative they are also really practical and that’s the di erence between my bespoke and my personal pieces.
Q You’ve put it into production in Stoke on Trent...
A I feel really passionate about pieces being handmade. I think you can really feel the energy from them, the energy is transmitted. They’re made through slipcasting: I make the prototype and then it is hand-finished and handglazed. I taught three lovely women in Stoke how to do the bubble technique, so although the shapes are uniform and made from the same mould, each piece is individual because they’re finished by hand. I love supporting UK artisans and keeping that industry
CAKE STAND, £295 going is really important to me. It was exciting and really wonderful to meet a factory that was very open to my techniques and my shapes and forms, which are not symmetrical and not easy to replicate. They have dips and fingerprints and my hand markings are kept into the pieces so that I’m part of the piece, which is really important to me.
Q Where do you work?
A I have my own garden studio – it’s a lockdown baby. I spent lockdown in my kitchen making bowls and my husband got tired of the mess. It’s heaven, I work there and do my bespoke pieces and glaze experimenting and all of what I call the fun stu .
Q What are you working on now?
A I’m working on a couple of projects at the moment, one is a range of serveware for a private members club, a special colour for their pantry, they have a gorgeous marble platter and they want lot of serving platters and cake stands; I’m making bespoke reactive glazes for them. I’m also developing new pieces for my own collection, so there’s a lot of talking to customers and working out what they want to have on their tables.
