{"id":11325,"date":"2022-05-25T10:00:56","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T08:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homesandantiques.com\/?p=29942"},"modified":"2022-05-25T10:23:13","modified_gmt":"2022-05-25T08:23:13","slug":"a-gothic-arts-crafts-home","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/rss_feed\/a-gothic-arts-crafts-home\/","title":{"rendered":"A gothic Arts & Crafts home"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Serena Fokschaner\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 25 May 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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\u2018We call it a punked up version of history,\u2019 says Maxine Hall, pointing to the dramatic wallpaper<\/a> that adorns the red-carpeted stairway of her home in Derby. The design, Grand Reader, is from one of many collections she has created for Blackpop<\/a>, her home furnishings company.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Viewed from a distance, Maxine\u2019s design has an abstract feel. But, draw close, and intriguing elements from the past emerge from the velvety black depths. There is an image of the carved Imp from the interior of Lincoln Cathedral, a carved Japanese netsuke deity, a bird\u2019s skull and the flash of a butterfly\u2019s wing.<\/p>\n

This painterly effect draws on the digital skills Maxine has been developing since studying Photography at the University of Westminster in the late 1980s. Having worked as a fine artist and also lectured at Derby University, Maxine \u2018took the mid-life plunge\u2019 in 2012 and left to set up her own business.<\/p>\n

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\u2018I\u2019d always mixed graphics and photography to create my images,\u2019 she says. \u2018And it struck me that wallpaper and textiles would be the perfect surfaces for my designs.\u2019 Maxine traces her fascination with pattern making and problem solving to her childhood. \u2018One of my earliest memories is of crawling and being transfixed by the swirls on the carpet.\u2019<\/p>\n

By the time she was 13, she had collaged the walls of her room with newspaper, adding layers of postcards<\/a> and concert tickets. She believes this preoccupation with layering is her way of \u2018making sense of the world\u2019. And it\u2019s very much in evidence throughout her home, which is also where the Blackpop studio is based, high up under the eaves.<\/p>\n

Maxine bought the house 17 years ago with her partner, Paula Moss. They were both charmed by the fact that it had hardly been touched since 1911, the year it was built. \u2018The Arts and Crafts<\/a> bones of the architecture \u2013 the upside down heart motifs, the stained glass windows \u2013 really appealed to our joint imagination,\u2019 says Paula, who is an artist, as well as Blackpop\u2019s Studio Director.<\/p>\n

Like the radicals of the Arts and Crafts movement, Maxine and Paula share an aversion to mass production and are in favour of a return to handcrafted design. \u2018We\u2019re socialists, who want to provide good design for all, even though that presents the familiar pricing conundrum,\u2019 she smiles.<\/p>\n