Before & after: a mini makeover

It's amazing how different you can make a room feel with just a little rejigging. I've had the sideboard in the living room arranged like this for ages. But I've always felt that the print on the left, a piece I love by the artist Claire Scully, got slightly lost.

You'd be hard pushed to see that it depicts a giant squirrel climbing an urban tower block. The whole corner had also started feeling a bit cluttered as I filled the rest of the room with more stuff. But stuck for inspiration, it remained pretty much like this.

And then three new things came into the house. One bought by me, one bought by my boyfriend and one revamped from the house clearing I did after my dear gran died last year. But before I get into those, here's how the sideboard looks now. Much cleaner and a bit more grown up I think. What do you reckon?

So the largest of the new things is the print on the left. It's from the south London art gallery, Peckham Space, but via the design website CultureLabel – which, if you don't know, you should: incredible for presents, though dangerous for window shopping.

The print is called the Black Music Map of South London and I wrote about it on Below the River, the other website I edit (where you can also click to enlarge it and have a proper look). In short, it is a Tube-like map featuring everything from significant street corners to legendary record shops and the locations of often obscure RnB and dancehall nights. Many of which I've been to. So. I had to have it.

But, largely because it cost £85 that I didn't really have going spare, it's something I looked at for ages and didn't buy. I kept thinking about it, though, and telling people about it and eventually realised that I loved it enough for it not to be something I'd buy and then get sick of (and on the Shopping Justification List, that comes pretty high. Here's another one, in case you get shopping guilt too: if a close friend buys something they also can't justify/afford at the same time as you do, it cancels out the cost of your purchase. Honest).

The second new thing is the lamp. Well, new/old, as it was my gran's and I've just had it rewired as you can see. You might have read the post about all the things I brought back from her house a while back. (And I should take some photos of what's happened to all the other stuff too.) Looks a bit perkier now, doesn't it? I got the brilliant neon wire from Fabric Cable – initially though, being three-core (made up of a trio of strands) it was too thick to go through the holes in the arm. The electrician cunningly stripped it down to two where necessary and bingo.

Finally, this beautiful sculpture completes the new arrangement.

It was made by our very talented neighbour Emma Broughton (see the tour of her lovely home here). I took my boyfriend to her private view in the summer – to mark the end of her stint as a fellow at the prestigious City and Guilds London Art School – and we both fell in love with her strangely poignant series of pigeon sculptures. She depicts the birds as battered by urban life, as they are, and yet dignified and full of character. He bought one of them on the spot.

In fact, he bought Emma's time making us a new one as none of the ones in the show were available. And, below, you can see how this one took shape.


Emma currently has a piece of work in the Mall Galleries, where she's up for the dizzyingly impressive Threadneedle Prize for sculpture and painting. If happen to be nearby today, there's still time to vote for her work to win the People's Choice award. Meanwhile, I'm now looking at the rest of my living room and thinking that looks a bit tired too – I think my one-corner makeover is going to spread.

The Threadneedle Prize, Mall Galleries, 17 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5BD. Entry is free. Voting before 5pm, and the £10,000 prize winner is announced at a party between 6pm - 8pm. And you can see more of Emma's work at Emmabroughton.com


Post by Kate

Cool craft to buy online – or at the We Make London fair

Craft fairs were once the domain of flouncy loo roll doilies and lavender bags trimmed with lace. Which, actually, could both be OK with a 2011 slant on them. But I digress: the point is that the modern craft fair is an exciting place to be, and upcoming We Make London event on 10 December at south London's Battersea Arts Centre is a fine example.


Can't make it? Fear not, you can get the best from it in a mere click of the mouse...

I have long loved Claire Scully's work, above, which I discovered at a show put on my the brilliant Outline Editions. I bought a print from her, in fact, of a giant squirrel scaling a tower block. And now she has lots of new works of art posted on her website, The Quiet Revolution. And I'm tempted all over again.

This donkey print, by Phoebe Eason, reminds me of the sort of straw tourist souvenir I imagine you might have got in Spain in the late 1960s. I love it. "Donkey O'Tay" (do you see what she did there?) costs £18, printed on 21cmx29cm paper and there are only 15 of him – so get in quick.

Mr Marlow, according to his maker, Forgotten Stiches, ran away from the circus and found his way into her Etsy shop. Now, for just £38, the handsome dog is looking for a loving new home without scary lions and clowns hanging around. He measures 30cm from nose to tail and is 40cm high. Far too good for a children's toy, he'd chirp up the mantlepiece marvellously.

Anna Wiscombe's wooden wall birds cost £15 each. A good update on the trio of flying ducks. I'd put one to perk me up in the morning, visible from bed, or in my home office to do the same job. Birds are good for that.

Clockwise from bottom left: Evolution of a Magic Trick, by Enclosed Spaces, is £45 and A2 size. It also comes in black; this sheep cushion, by Mary Kilvert, is borderline country cottage twee – but there's something ridiculously endearing about all those sheepy faces in such bright colours, don't you think? £20 (small) or £40 (less small); this cute Cakes of Britain tea-towel, £10.41, by Jilty Drawings would make a great present (and, nice touch, it comes tied in gingham ribbon); Tina Vlassopulous's elegant ceramics come in many delicately undulating forms. This elegant Spring Series Twig dressing table pot for jewellery costs £50.

Fresh fonts

Just when you think you're over a fashion – as I did with the trend for typographical art – along come some new ones you just can't resist.

Oh, and (in the case of "gin" down below) some oldies that just don't fade.

I'd quite like this quote from Coco Chanel to be the first thing I see when I wake up. It's by illustrator Ros Shiers and costs just £20 (A3 size) from A Little Bit of Art.

La Di Dada is by Robert Rubbish. Kinda joyful isn't it? £50, also from A Little Bit of Art. 

Try looking at this without singing along. Go on. This comes printed on recycled board, using one of the last-remaining vintage Heidleberg letter presses. It costs £38 (A3 size), made by Wasted and Wounded Letterpress and available from Made By Hands of Britain. They do Bob Dylan and the Beatles too – look.  

I've long loved the simple message on this print by Robert Rubbish (see above). £50 (48cm x 64cm) from A Little Bit of Art. You could also try the lovely Outline Editions, which sells it in black; they have all sorts of other goodies by exciting illustrators on sale too. It's where I bought my cherished tower block squirrel print by Claire Scully.

Another good message, strengthened by the simple illustration, that would be good in a child's room (unlike, of course, "Drink More Gin"). Start em thinking as you hope they'll go on etc. It's 40cm x 50cm (nice standard Ikea frame size...), is printed on heavy paper and there are only 100 of each colour (yellow, blue and black) and costs £47.50. Find it at the Keep Calm gallery.

And why say "bye" when you can say "hi"? 40cm x 50cm print also from the Keep Calm Gallery – and a snip at just £20.

Kate Moross and co. at Outline Editions (yep, more affordable art)

Kate Moross, David Foldvari, Lizzie Finn, Marcus James, Helicar & Lewis... 

...just some of the exciting fresh names in illustration currently gracing the walls of the new Outline Editions pop-up gallery/online shop for graphic artists.

I went to the wildlife-themed launch of the new pop-up in Soho last week - where I fell in love with this insane-could-be-menacing print (top) by the artist, Claire Scully (£85 for an A4, limited edition print).

She explained her inspiration for the work came from the urban surrounds of the house in London that she grew up in. Like me, she loves the city she grew up in and sees nature amid the concrete, brutalist architecture - and loves the contrast. Her sister, she said, is a furniture designer, and made her a series of bird feeders in the shape of the local tower blocks to hang in the garden and by the windows - they were seized upon by the squirrels. She used the scenes she observed from her bedroom window to inspire this - among other - works.

As some readers may know, I'm having a few squirrel issues. Love them scampering through the garden, with its tower block backdrop; don't love them living in my roof and galloping and gnawing into my dreams. Somehow this image captures my ambivalent relationship with them.

Check out some of the other interesting, fresh talent in the online shop, or at the gallery (or below) – open until 31 Jan.