St Aidan's Homeware Store

Our Pop Up Britain shop

admin — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:51:11 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEJFNlv7pII

Well, we’ve just finished two weeks in our first pop up shop. Click the link above to watch a little film I made in a quiet moment to give you a look around the store. Thanks to Mary Portas, Pop Up Britain and Intuit for making it great experience for such a new business like ours. I was also lucked out and got to share the space with these three great new start-up business’:

http://www.richmondsocks.com/

http://www.bonny-boutique.co.uk/default.asp

http://loveartwearart.com/

Working alongside people on a similar path has been a tremendously inspiring and rewarding time. Then there’s you lot…the customers! Thank you so much to those of you who know us and popped in to say hello. And a big welcome to those of you who only just discovered us in the store…. what an interesting, design savvy bunch you St Aidan’s Homeware Store shoppers are!

All in all it’s been such a great experience we’re hoping to repeat it soon. Watch this space and we’ll let you know the next place we’ll be popping up!

Ansel Adams

admin — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 20:27:46 +0000

I love Ansel Adams!
When I was a photography student I was only interested in pictures with people in them. From reportage to fashion I was a happy boy but still-life’s and landscapes left me cold. Dull, dull, dull. Then I discovered Ansel.
An American photographer who was at the forefront of taking photography from an art that tried to copy painting styles (known loosely as Pictorialism) to Photographic Modernism. He embraced the medium of photography and spent every day working from 1915 until his death in 1984, apart from when he had a hangover…ahem!
He made landscapes exciting to me because of the drama and contrast he created by experimenting with printing techniques in the darkroom. A keen pianist he famously likened negative and print to the score and performance in music. The negative, like the score, contains all the information necessary to make a picture while printing was considered to be the performance or interpretation. According to this idea Adams would print the same negative in different ways over time.
He inspired me as a photographer and designer by declaring that ‘interpretation’ was two fold; what you see and what you feel.
I could go on…but I won’t. Get yourself down to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich until the 28th April to get a taste for yourself. And while you’re there don’t leave without a visit to The Painted Hall. My favourite place in Greenwich…might even see you there x

Bow steals the show…

admin — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 18:23:45 +0000

This tall chalkboard is a favourite of mine. We never forget anything now. Shooting it in our little 2 up 2 down in Greenwich was tricky though as it was hard to get far back enough to show the whole thing and, yes, that old, blurry chap reaching into the fridge is me because Bow (the cat) wouldn’t pose for me – or so I thought!

The chalkboard is supposed to be the star of the show here but I can’t help feeling it’s been slightly upstaged!

Naughty knitter alert…

admin — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:25:10 +0000

On a walk today along an undeveloped, industrial stretch of the river between East and North Greenwich it slowly dawned on me that some of the lamposts had socks? Weird. Then I noticed a derelict warehouse festooned with woolen bunting. Odd. This was shortly upstaged by my discovery of a tree wearing a brightly knitted sleeve on one of it’s branches! Strange.

What’s going on? As I went on I discovered more and more. Railings, posts, high up, low down. Whoever you are, you naughty knitter, I just want to say thank you. You brought a smile to my face and some colour to what would’ve been just another cold, grey day in London.

There is a serial knitter on the loose in Greenwich!

Australian style…

admin — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 18:01:16 +0000

Just flicked through the first issue of The Quintessential Magazine. http://thequintessentialmagazine.com.au/ Have to say those Oz’s are an amazingly talented bunch.

Which brings me neatly on to Amanda Talbot. Another hugely talented Australian who I had the privilege of working with for a while when we were both on LivingEtc magazine. She’s just launched this brilliant new book which is a wonderful exploration into rethinking how we live in our spaces. She challenges all the accepted norms and asks questions like can our kitchens be living farms? Do we want a lo-fi life? Do we only sleep in our bedrooms? This is more than just an interior style book. This is a movement! Go Amanda….. Joe x