Live/work sculpting
Gareth Devonald-Smith designs bespoke functional sculpture chandeliers and mirrors. To talk about commissioning a work contact Gareth on 020 8678 7767 or garethdevonaldsmith@gmail.com
What dark forces compelled you to
move to a live/work unit
It was partly practicality – so that I could combine a living area and a working area. That and not having to commute – lots of different things, really.
Did the term live/work mean anything to friends and family or did describing your new home/studio entail tedious explanations?
I didn’t really explain it to anybody except my brother – he understood it. Most of my friends are aware of the concept.
How long have you been based there and how long do you plan to stay live/working?
Three years. This is the first live/work space I’ve had and now I plan stay live/working probably for the rest of my life. I’m not sure what expectations I had in my head when I took it on because I didn’t have anything to really compare it to – for the first year it was quite lonely because of having to do lots of work on the place and organise all that. I live on my own and it’s a big space, so when I moved in I really felt that – it’s quite a big area to be rattling around in. When you move from a conventional house it feels very different.
What attractive features did your unit have to offer? For example, floors, walls, plumbing, a roof... ?
Space and light. They’re essential to my work.
What extras have you added to make it functional, comfortable and easy on the eye?
I did quite a lot of work to the living space, which I tend to use for work as well. It’s got a lot of my work in it and it’s good enough to have been featured in a couple of interiors magazines. It’s got a nice terrace and lots of plants and things like that – comfortable furniture and a little bit of chic and glamour!
How long does it take you to reach your studio in the morning and what mode of transport do you use?
About 30 seconds, just down the stairs from the kitchen. It’s a manageable commute!
What motivates you to start and stay working each day (or night)?
Having taken on a job it’s usually the pressure of commitment to the client. I’ve usually got jobs on, and people coming to see me during the day who want to commission a work or talk about projects that are on the go and lots of enquiries and emails. So there’s always a list of things to do and I just have to get on and do them. That works pretty well really.
Sometimes I’ll have a client ring who wants to get something done quite quickly so I won’t exactly have to drop everything but I might have to make an appointment during the day and then work in the evening instead. I can down tools for a couple of hours and go upstairs, then come back down and get on with the work during the evening instead.
Do you ever find work takes a back seat to valuable conflicting interests like going back to bed, watering the plants or staring out the window?
On balance, yes it does. I can get distracted, but then distraction is part of the process. You need to do something else away from making the work or dealing with clients, something which just gives you some kind of downtime. But instead of taking holiday or a morning off or something like that, even just a side project or looking at things on eBay or whatever is quite useful.
Do you ever feel slightly cut off from the rest of the world or is that an advantage in your line of work?
Yes, it’s a funny thing – it can be a bit of a bonus. Sometimes you need to be fairly cut off – it’s helpful in terms of concentration and also in terms of the work, but on the other hand if you get too cut off it can affect your personality. You get too used to doing your own thing and not compromising with other people and what they want to do – partners and relationships and things like that. But I think you generally find that it finds its own level – if you’ve got a lot of work on you don’t have time to think about it, so you don’t consciously think ‘I’m a bit lonely’, you just get on with it.
Like everything, it’s got plus points and negative points. When I commuted it used to take me two hours a day, which works out at a day a week, and that’s quite wearing. I’ve got friends who travel into London from what you could call the ‘near countryside’ – places like Berkshire, which is a 40-minute train ride. They’re putting up with a nasty commute to have the advantage of being in the country, the fact that they’re in greenery in the evening and at the weekend, so everything has a trade-off. I don’t know what the ideal life is. I do sort of feel that I’ve got that, whereas other people might say ‘you live in a hell hole’.
You have to remind yourself that working with other people can be great, but on the other hand there’s all the stupid nonsense and office politics that can go with it – the way people can behave when they don’t have enough to do. If you’re working for yourself you’re motivated – you can get through a hell of a lot in a day, because you have to. I find that now when I go to other environments, I’m amazed at what other people put up with. You see people standing around chatting and you think ‘just get on with it’.
What do you miss about the more conventional home/studio divide?
I find that my living area gets quite messy and dirty, but that’s partly because of where it is – next to a very dusty building yard. Dirt can travel a long way in studio space.
There’s also the fact that you don’t seem to stop - you can get sucked into practical things like putting a wash load or the dishwasher on. You do that kind of stuff in between work and emailing and going to see clients and buying materials, so you don’t actually physically stop. When you commute you have that time when you can read a paper, a book, and sometimes you don’t make that with live/work space because it always feels like there’s always something to do.
Also, I tend to use my living area as a test space. I’ve decorated the place around work that I’ve made so it gives clients a chance see pieces as I live with them and as I put them together. Some people can visualise a piece in a setting but some can’t so they can say ‘oh yeah, I could use that in my space, or I could if it was altered’. That’s how I work, with bespoke one-off pieces and I can tailor make them to specific interiors.
On what terms would you contemplate a return to the other side?
I really wouldn’t. I’m not sure that I would ever split my living and my working ever again. The only thing that I would possibly do would be to have two separate buildings side by side with a showroom/studio/work area and a living area next door that would be completely divided.
I don’t know what would ever come up that would prompt the desire to live in a conventional space or a house – I can’t see myself ever returning to that. I could see myself having a holiday home or something like that, which would be more conventional – a house or a villa or a cottage somewhere in the country or by the sea, but that’s something different. I could never live in another place and commute again.
garethdevonaldsmith@gmail.com
