The designer talks toKatie Pikeabout her artworks, which are inspired by her colourful collection of Art Deco ceramics
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I started buying 1920s and 1930s ceramics with my husband in the late 1970s. We’d find pieces in junk shops and antiques shops, quite often en route to and from Wales where I grew up. We didn’t set out to be Art Deco collectors, it just happened. We realised that we were both falling in love with that era.
The 1920s and 1930s were very much the theme when we moved into this house. Although the building is Victorian, we were able to adapt and to introduce decorative hints of the era into our home. Our collection took off as we worked on the house. It’s located in Lee, south-east London, so Greenwich Market was a huge source back in the 1980s and 1990s. During those years there were also monthly Art Deco Fairs at The Borough Hall in Greenwich, which were exciting events.
It’s the wonderful shapes, forms and colours of the ceramics in particular that I find so uplifting. The house is south facing and, when the sun shines on them in the sitting room, they can bowl me over.
I studied at Brighton School of Art and have a degree in Fashion from Saint Martin’s School of Art, as it was called then. I worked as a designer for a while, moved into teaching and, for the last 20 years of my professional life, I worked as a college lecturer teaching design, pattern-cutting and construction.
In 1989, I had a month free between jobs and I spent the time exploring stitched textiles and discovered what’s called free machine embroidery. I was hooked. My subject matter was, and still is sometimes, individual pieces from my Art Deco collection. I discovered
