...here is our second installment of member interviews, introducing
tessa...
1. What's your creative thing?
Hand pierced
copper and brass
jewellery combined with glass, cord and now chain. The
metal motifs are taken from the natural world – indigenous plants and birds, feathers, herbs and so on.
2. Describe your dream studio?
Oh yum. A
double height space with a massive mezzanine level, lit by a huuuge sky light.
The bottom level is chock a block full of every kind of tool and piece of
equipment I could ever need to return to making large functional metal ware. I
see racks of steel stakes, furnaces, lathes of all sizes, sanders and saws,
chest of drawers bursting with files and things I’ll never use, but just really
love having, for in case! Upstairs is a lot prettier, with white concrete
floors, a little lounge /design
area with bookcases filled with magazines from everywhere on one side and on
the other, the walls are lined with trestle tables for laying out, assembling
and packaging jewellery and bowls. Lots
of big windows, so with the skylight, the whole place is constantly bathed in light. Oh, and
enormous amazing plants. And a sheep skin rug or two. And a cleaner to come
once a week
(I know my limitations and sweeping and dusting are two of them!).
3. What fuels your creative energy?
People
- A chance meeting with an old
friend, a stranger with something special about them and proper chats with my
best people.
4. The first creative thing you can
remember making?
A little pottery jug, I think I was 9. I made it on a
potter’s wheel, and was very proud. My mom still has it, as well as the jug my
older, jealous brother made in competition!
5. The first creative thing you were paid
to create?
Two tiny silver bowls on long wire legs for a little old lady in
Edinburgh who loved silverware, but never displayed it. She would commission
pieces, and then store them in boxes in her home. I guess they are still there
in some dusty pile.
6. That one thing you're so glad you made?
The
decision to come home to Cape Town.
7. If you could live inside any artwork in
the world, which would it be?
“Spring” by Cy Twombly – first of all I simply love
the artist’s name and would probably just wander around muttering it; second,
it’s so light and messy in his work, like living in a scatty fairy land.
8. If you could collaborate with one famous
creative, dead or alive, who would it be?
Li Edelkoort – she seems so scary, I’d
have to bring my A game; our collaboration would be years ahead of the pack and
therefore the schizznizz; and she
DOES things with her status – she started an art school in Poland I’d kill to
go to –the course a combination between an design and humanities degree – swoon.
9. The local design magazine you always
read?
I’m a bit bad about buying magazines, but I do love Elle Deco and House
and Leisure and the occasional Marie Claire. I really wish I could warrant
buying Wallpaper and Vogue, but somehow I feel too guilty forking out all that
cash. (is it OK that I sometimes buy Heat too??)
10. The salutation at the end of your
email?
It depends – for day job situations where I want to be
just a little intimidating, - nothing.
The message and bam. Send.
For friendly happy
emails (and yes, I should know better) it’s a Gossip Girl influenced ex oh ex
oh,
Other wise, a good old stock standard
“regards”/”kind regards” although a wanky “Best” has been
known to have slipped out on occasion…
