Open House: sculptors Andrew Sabin and Laura Ford on gardening, beekeeping and making art at their converted Victorian factory in Kentish Town
Sculptors Andrew Sabin and Laura Ford first moved to their converted Victorian factory in Kentish Town in the early 1990s in search of more space to make art. And space they found.
After various conversions and extensions, their home now consists of 543 sq m of sprawling, largely open-plan studios and a contemporary living space above, as well as an enormous 286 sq m garden with room for vegetable patches and beehives.
Ahead of its sale, we visited Perren Street for our ‘Open House’ series to get a feel for what life has been like for Andrew, Laura and their now-grown-up family in the house.
Laura: “We had a house in Dalston before this and rented studios nearby. When we had our first child, we knew we wanted space for family life but also to be able to make sculpture in the same place. I think especially as a female artist with children, you kind of need to have the two things under one roof.
“We’re not artists who want to close the door to the studio at the end of the day – quite the opposite, in fact. Our life and work completely spill over, and that’s the way we like it.”
Andrew: “When we were looking to move we ordered auction catalogues and just went through them, looking for a building with enough space. We would have gone anywhere – we just wanted to have the room to make the sort of work we wanted to make. It wasn’t about moving somewhere to be with like-minded people, it was whether the building fitted our needs.”
Laura: “But we got lucky with Kentish Town. We moved here and suddenly realised that the schools were great, and we’re so near Hampstead Heath and Regent’s Park.
“It’s changed quite a bit since we moved here but not too much, thankfully. The high street is still an interesting place and amazing for food, and there’s an established community here.
“But it’s smarter now, and we even have a Gail’s, but somehow the old character of Kentish Town remains.
“When we first saw the space, there were certain things that we really enjoyed about the building. It was all falling down but it gave us this ability, like it does now, where we can walk in a circle all the way around both the studio spaces and the living spaces, with each room flowing into the other.
“It means we can work quite flexibly across our studios. Andrew’s studio doubles as a workshop, so I use the welding area, or mess up his space – I’m a bit messier than him. Well, actually, no, I think you’re getting messier than me now. What with all that margarine you’re using!”
Andrew: “I know where all my tools live.”
Laura: “And I never put them back! But it’s pretty fluid, really. And we share an assistant too. Ideas go back and forth, in an unconscious way. We’re always talking about each other’s work and nicking each other’s ideas.”
Andrew: “I’m steadfastly abstract and Laura’s a figurative artist, so it doesn’t look like ideas rub off on each other, but they do.
“When we arrived, the house was in a very derelict condition – lots of leaking roofs, holes in the floor and virtually no light in the back space. The context was industrial with metal finishers and a lot of banging and clashing from the next-door buildings.
“With sculpture, you acquire skills to be able to make a space look good to present work, and those skills are transferable in terms of making a space habitable. So that’s what we did, we made a home for ourselves.
“Once we were established here, we redesigned the back space, which was essentially a long Victorian shed, divided into stable-like units, with open fronts and partitions. Each kid (we had three by that point) had a cubicle, which was fantastic; we used to just walk along the stalls at night to check on them.”
Laura: “It was great because it meant they had a huge play area, and could ride their bikes and skateboards around it. Because the building was so rough, they could paint, and do anything they liked to the walls. They had a very messy and creative childhood.”
Andrew: “Eventually, we roped in an architect. It’s such a complicated thing, to build a building – the planning alone is tough. We might have thought we could do it all ourselves, but the reality is that it’s too much.”
Laura: “But we needed an architect who would be happy to work with us because we had quite a clear idea of how we like living. If you ask someone to come in with a completely different vision, they might make a beautiful space, but it might not function how you need it to.
“We asked ourselves, ‘What do we like doing?’. We love cooking, so we have a massive island in the kitchen, which is great for having people over for dinner, and when we were bringing up the kids – we had to cook endless meals so we thought we may as well have somewhere to enjoy doing that! It’s a fabulous place to cook.
“The garden has changed over time. When the children were little, we grew a lot of vegetables and spent a lot of time out there. Now it’s become less like that…”
Andrew: “Laura is a brilliant gardener. Most things she plants seem to grow, whereas other people, who seemingly do the same thing, don’t seem to get the same results.
“I keep bees, initially on the advice of a friend who said she’d help me but then couldn’t. I was on my own with the bees but not for long because every area has a beekeeping association filled to the scuppers with enthusiastic beekeepers willing to share their knowledge. I now have four colonies and produced over 100kg of honey last year.
“It’s delicious, made of the nectar my bees suck up from all the beautifully-planted gardens and parks of north London. What I don’t eat or give away I sell in the local health food shop as Kentish Town Honey and the label has my name on it – it’s very satisfying.
“The life of the colony is so unlike ours and yet learning how they structure their lives is somehow a meditation on our own. Virgin queens, feckless drones (males), egg-laying workers, robber bees, mating flights and swarms are all part of an on-going drama played out at the end of the garden. It’s a fascinating hobby which continues to give me a lot of pleasure without stealing too much of my time.”
Laura: “Being an artist is quite a precarious occupation, so home gives us safety, and is the base for everything.”
Andrew: “Yes, we run our business out of here; assistants, who are friends, spend their days here; our children were always here, and they still regard it as the focal point of their lives, wherever they might be.
“Our daughter now lives in Tufnell Park, so she’s here very often. She forced me to revive my old pottery set up so she could make ceramics. So, it’s the hub really… of everything.
“We’ll be sad to leave this place. We have planning permission to build a contemporary studio and home that will have even more room to make larger pieces for public display, which we’re both doing more of. This one will be built from scratch as a live/work space for two sculptors, rather than being a conversion of a Victorian warehouse. From the beginning, it will be designed with forklifts in mind.”
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