The rise of maximalism has led to a renewed appreciation for decorative crafts that were popular in Victorian times. Now a new generation is driving these traditional forms in bold new directions. Whether their medium is flowers or feathers, shells or glass, they all share a passion for the hand in their work - no digital shortcuts here - and a determination to break boundaries while cherishing the skills and materials of centuries past.
The sign painter: Archie Proudfoot
It was the work of the artist Stephen Powers, who creates large-scale murals on America’s East Coast, that first alerted Archie Proudfoot to the possibilities of sign writing. Intrigued, he found the only course teaching the skill in the UK, led by Joby Carter of Carters Steam Fair. ‘I was hooked,’ he says. ‘I bought a book on glass gilding and started experimenting.’ After a year as a teaching assistant, he had to choose between a career as an educator or an artist. Art won. Proudfoot soon started getting commissions from brands such as Soho House, which asked him to create a piece for White City House in Shepherd’s Bush.
The tradition of painting on glass is centuries old. ‘It goes back to pub signs,’ explains Proudfoot. ‘People weren’t literate, so they used pictures. Signs were wayfinding points in the city before there were maps.’ The medium exploded in the 19th century with the growth of commercialism and shopping streets. While his style – neon colours, punchy slogans – is dramatically different, Proudfoot’s method is authentic. ‘I’m using the same brushes, paints and gold leaf,’ he says. ‘You can bring in modern technology, but I’ve always enjoyed keeping it very much from the hand.’
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The work is painstaking: it can take anywhere from a week to a month to finish a piece, and there’s little margin for error. ‘It’s not like a canvas, where you can paint over a mistake – you’re stuck with it,’ he says. ‘Doing things quickly is the best way to get the nicest letter; it’s all about using the fewest brush strokes possible.’ Lately, Proudfoot has been pushing his practice in new directions. ‘I’ve developed this technique of making halftone reverse-glass images and using photos of my body to create the letter forms.’
While he admires the skill of the original sign painters, he’s wary of rose-tinted nostalgia. ‘I’m certainly not a revivalist,’ he says. ‘I like the history, but I want to apply a contemporary eye. You don’t want to get sucked into harking back to an earlier time when things were simpler – that’s just not true – but you can play with people’s emotional connection to that time by using the same techniques.’ archieproudfoot.com; @archieproudfoot
The botanical artist: Kate Goodrich
After her first try at flower pressing while travelling around Europe as a child with her family, Kate Goodrich was obsessed. ‘We’d pass fields of poppies in France,’ she recalls. ‘They had taken over the landscape, adding colour. It’s an impression that stayed with me for a long time.’ She initially became known for her collages – pressed flowers overlaid on photographs found in car-boot sales. These days, her pieces are framed between panes of antique glass full of tiny air bubbles, fittingly known as ‘seeds’. The imperfection sgive her work a transformative quality: ‘When the light hits them, the plants come alive again. They almost dance – it’s really magical.’
A vital part of Goodrich’s practice is growing the flowers that go into her work. From prepping the ground in winter to sowing seeds in spring, it’s a cyclical and lengthy process. Anything not used goes back into the compost. ‘It doesn’t cost anything to get into flower pressing,’ says Goodrich, ‘just a few heavy objects and some paper. You’ve got to understand the plant, cut it at the right time, know how much water it holds and treat it with respect.’
Because the species she is currently working with are huge, Goodrich makes her own presses with large sheets of wood and newspaper or old artwork. Although she uses the same techniques as the Victorians, her aesthetic is different. ‘I call my work “punk botanical” because I don’t want it to look twee or pretty. I try to show the rawness of the plant. Nature is savage – let’s honour that.’
While her style differs from the flower artists of 150 years ago, Goodrich feels connected to them. ‘I respect the Victorians who wanted to capture something of beauty. It’s pure curiosity, and that’s to be admired.’ She loves finding evidence of that impulse in old books: ‘You get a sense of time. It makes me think of someone out on a walk who thought,“That’s a lovely leaf, I’m going to mark my page with it”.’ The ephemeral nature of the medium fascinates her, too. ‘My artwork may change over the years – it’s the same as if you bought a photograph and put it in a sunny spot. It would fade too, but there’s beauty in that.’ kategoodrich.com; @kate_goodrich_studio
The shell artist: Mel Campion
Coming home from holidays, Mel Campion’s suitcase is always stuffed with shells. The fine artist creates installations for architects and interior designers, including Lucy Barlow, who last year commissioned her to make a showstopping shell grotto for Kin House in Wiltshire. Belinda Eade and Diana Reynell – both part of a long female tradition of shell artists dating back to the 18th century – are influences but, says Campion, ‘Mary Delany was probably the first. She was an extraordinary woman, and taught many people how to work with shells.’
The natural beauty of shells and their connection to the sea fascinates Campion, who enjoys ‘painting ’ walls with densely packed collages of them. ‘I love their elaborate designs pulled together in profusion,’ she says. ‘The impact is astonishing.’ She finds many of the shells she works with on British beaches, including Venus clams and mussels, which are prolific in Anglesey and the Menai Strait.
Her technique is traditional – ‘it’s not much more complicated than attaching a shell to a surface’ – but the results are startlingly modern. ‘Drawing my design directly onto the walls, as I did at Kin House, is not something I’d imagine the Victorians would have been happy about,’ she admits. She is currently experimenting with other Victorian techniques, such as incorporating fabric into her shell collages and dyeing them with onion skins, coal and avocado stones.
‘There’s so much strength in the past and I take a huge amount from that, but being an artist is about trying new things,’ says Campion, who believes that shells have a lot to teach us about our relationship with the natural world. She describes them as ‘quite innocent’, but adds that her works of art are resilient. ‘You can knock up against them and they’ll be fine!’ melcampion.com; @madeby_melcampion
The ethical taxidermist: Jazmine Miles-Long
Many people have a strong reaction to taxidermy. ‘It’s the death thing,’ admits Jazmine Miles-Long. After studying for an art degree, she volunteered at Brighton’s Booth Museum, where she was taught by the curator. ‘I grew up a vegetarian and I loved taxidermy, but it was complicated because of hunting and the ethics around it.’ When she realised she could make work using animals that had died naturally, her career took off.
As well as working for museums in the UK and internationally, she makes sculptures for galleries and private commissions. A lot of her clients are also vegetarian or vegan. ‘They don’t like taxidermy, but then a bird will fly into their window and they’ll think, “I can’t throw that away, what can I do with it?”. Because I only work with animals that have died from natural causes, they feel a connection to me and my work.’
Her process involves creating a sculpture of the animal before upholstering the skin onto it. She uses wax and wood– the same materials used in taxidermy for centuries. The plastics common in modern taxidermy, she discovered, can release harmful gases. ‘If I’m creating something, I want to know it’s not going to damage anything around it and that it’s going to last for hundreds of years, looking just as good as when I first made it,’ she says.
Miles-Long’s animals are presented in colourful box frames, often with wax or porcelain sculptures mixed in. It’s an approach that distinguishes her work from that of the Victorians. ‘It’s a bit traditional, but not, because it doesn’t have the fauna or the paintings inside it,’ she explains.
The goal, she adds, is to make work that encourages the viewer to engage with the animal. ‘I don’t want to create anything that takes you away from the beauty and simplicity of that living –now dead – thing. I try to keep the work as respectful as possible. You wouldn’t be able to be a good taxidermist if you didn’t love animals.’ jazminemileslong.com; @jazmine_miles_long
