Karen HSU

Pom Pom Maker

With their delicate, fluffy, almost evanescent petals, Karen Hsu’s flower pom poms are like objects from a fairyland.

They come in all sizes and many wonderful colours and are handmade by Karen and her team at the Pom Pom Factory (currently located in her Brick Lane flat). The ornaments are used for window displays, party decorations, editorials and sometimes are even worn as accessories. They can be bought individually or assembled together as an elaborate installation.

Karen moved here from Hong Kong in 2001 to do a foundation course followed by a degree in graphic design at Central Saint Martins. Many years and career moves later she started working at the Mercantile clothing shop in Spitalfields. In 2010, the owner of the shop was in urgent need of a Christmas window display. With no budget but a lot of white wrapping paper at her disposal, Karen came to the rescue and transformed the window into a whimsical white flower scene. Before long, she started receiving enquiries - for single pom poms as well as for whole flower installations.

Her following grew rapidly and she was commissioned to make party decorations and window displays for other shops. That’s when the Pom Pom Factory in its current form was born. The breakthrough for Karen came when a merchandiser from a French clothing brand noticed her work and placed an order for 600 pom poms for their Paris flagship store. That was her first big commission. Soon after, she gave up her job at the store and ever since has made pom poms for a living.

Because it’s a simple creation and the only product of the Pom Pom Factory, every element of it needs to be perfect. “You can’t really cheat. It’s paper.” Karen says.

To make the pom poms, she takes a bunch of tissue paper, layers them and folds them into an accordion fan. She then ties the middle of the fan with wire and cuts the edges round. By carefully unfolding the accordion and separating the sheets of the flimsy paper, Karen brings the flower to blossom. She works quickly and is very precise. If there is enough time at hand, though, she prefers to work more slowly.

“Pom pom making is very therapeutic.” she explains. “I like the repetitiveness of it. When making the flowers, my head is always free and that feels very creative.” Maybe it is in her Asian genes, she suggests. Her Asian friends feel the same. Often they come over to her place for pom pom making after a stressful day at work. “We sometimes laugh and call ourselves Chinese factory worker”

“It’s a weird career”. Karen’s friends in Hong Kong can’t believe that she is still able to make a living out of her paper flowers. She is not scared of running out of work doing her ornaments. “If this happens, I’ll just look for something else to do. I just let it happen.” she says light-heartedly and with a laugh. It seems like Karen is the living proof that pom pom making has a calming and positive effects on one’s state of mind.

www.thepompomfactory.co.uk

Barn the Spoon

Spoonmaker

In a small shop on Hackney Road surrounded by piles of wood shavings sits an impressive looking man carving spoons. His name is Barnaby Carder, better known as Barn the Spoon.

Barn’s unusual profession came from a lifelong love of woodwork. It started in childhood when his neighbour taught him how to turn bowls. Later on he learnt all kinds of different woodwork techniques such as furniture, fence and jewellery-making. It was about seven years ago when he began a green wood
apprenticeship with a chairmaker and found his true passion – spoon carving. And spoons are what Barn is now famous for.

With just an axe for shaping the outline of the spoon and a bent knife for carving the bowl he brings out beautifully crafted spoons from a chunk of green wood. "I like the simplicity of it. I'm using very basic tools to make another very basic tool," he says.

It looks simple but there's obviously a lot of skill involved. For Barn, his craft has two elements. One is to make a functional household item that people can buy. The other is that he sees his spoons as art. “They're folk sculptures. I like making lots of little spoons for a tenner that dance around someone’s kitchen. People can have a different kind of relationship with a practical item such as a spoon as opposed to a sculpture you see at a museum.”

Before he opened his East London shop three years ago, Barn sold his spoons on the street as a pedlar. He is proud to be able to make a living out of carving spoons. “I was willing to sacrifice a lot so I could just hang out and make spoons. But luckily I don’t need a lot of money. I don’t buy things.”

The spoons are exclusively sold at Barn's shop at 260 Hackney Rd, E2 7SJ. www.barnthespoon.com

Barn also owns a little woodwork school where he collaborates with other craftspeople. Details: www.thegreenwoodguild.com

This article appeared in the October 2015 issue of LoveEast Magazine.

Gods own junkyard

Neon Sign Makers

Hidden inside an unremarkable industrial building in Walthamstow is one of the largest neon collections in the world. It’s called Gods Own Junkyard, a family firm that’s been supplying neon signs to Londoners and the rest of the world for decades.

Entering the space packed with light sculptures, movie props and original fairground and circus lights is like walking into a warm sea of glowing light. It’s a candy land for the eyes, a mini Las Vegas. From the classic “Girls, Girls, Girls” to enormous light-bulb typography, from conceptual art paradoxes to commercial signs, the place echoes a bygone era - one filled with the American Dream, tattoo culture, sex, glamour but most of all, with a whole lot of fun.

Gods own Junkyard is the life’s work of its founder, Chris Bracey, who passed away in 2014. He learnt the trade at an early age from his father who made lights for fairgrounds and circuses. What started as a simple sign-maker business quickly grew into the go-to-place for original, new and vintage light art and signage of all kinds. The business took off for Chris in the ‘70s and ‘80s, when he moved into making neon signage for the notorious Soho strip joints. Besides that, he started salvaging light signs and other objects which he refashioned, repaired and resurrected. Following a chance encounter with a film director he begun making neon props for movie sets. His work can be seen in films such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Eyes Wide Shut and Batman.

Two to three days a week, the space is rented out for photo and film shoots and other private events. Gods Own Junkyard’s neon lights grace the homes of many celebrities and demand for custom made works for artists and architects is high. Prices for pieces range between £350 and £35.000.

Towards the end of Chris’s illness, the family – his wife Linda and sons Marcus and Matt - began to take over the running of the business. The children were well prepared. Like Chris, Matt and Marcus learned their skills from their father.

The signs are not all easy glitziness. Many of the pieces are complex and require a huge amount of manual labor. Apart from the fact that there are more colors available today, neon manufacturing hasn’t changed since it was invented about 100 years ago. Neon signs are made of glass tubes that are cut and then bent over an open flame into a desired shape or lettering.

The most interesting thing, scientifically, is that the gas inside the tubes needs to be ionised (energised) in order to light up. That process is called bombarding. On a big table, called the bombarder, the ends of gas-filled signs are attached to positive and negative terminals. Then the bombarder hits it with 10’000 volts. “You have to keep your distance otherwise your hair will go sideways,” explains John, a long-term employee. After a while, like lightning in the clouds, a neon flicker appears and then the light comes on. When it’s ready to be put on the job a neon sign lasts for about 40 years.

Set up in the 1950’s, Gods own Junkyard is firmly established in Walthamstow but people come from all over to admire the wittily showcased neon works.

It’s definitely never a rainy day in there.

www.godsownjunkyard.com

This article was published in the September 2016 issue of LoveEast Magazine

East London Printmakers

East London Printmakers’ (ELP) bi-annual open studio events are great to find wonderful and original printed artworks for sale at an affordable price. The events also offer an opportunity to gain insight into the vast range of artistic printing techniques. All the prints on show such as woodcut, etching, aquatint, drypoint, lino, collograph and screenprints, are made right there at the studio.

ELP is an artist run, not-for-profit organisation that opened in 1998 by a collective of about ten artists with a passion for printmaking. They aimed to provide professional and affordable printmaking facilities for artists and designers and also to create opportunities for them to collaborate, discuss and exhibit their work. In an industrial building – a former clothing factory - on Mare Street, ELP found the ideal space. They installed a few different print presses in one small room and set off printing.

Over time the studio started offering workshops, exhibitions and other events with the community. That brought in some money that could be used to buy more equipment and ELP was able to gradually expand.

Today, the organisation occupies two large, light-flooded rooms full of printmaking equipment. The back room houses everything needed for etching and relief printing. The salient items there are the beautiful, sturdy iron Albion presses (see image). The second space contains several vacuum tables for screenprinting and a large exposure unit used for photo-silkscreens.

ELP now has 46 key-holders – artists who use the studio in exchange for a monthly fee and responsibilities in helping to run the organisation - and about 250 affiliated members. 

For anyone with some printmaking experience, ELP offers open access sessions. Those who haven’t got the knowledge yet or want to improve their technique can choose from a wide range of day and evening classes.

While the atmosphere in the studio is a relaxed and friendly bustle with artists absorbed in different stages of their work, there is a big behind-the-scenes thing going on there. Like many other places in the area, the studio has recently come under massive financial pressure and ELP see themselves forced to look for new premises.

“With the area changing as it is, we come to a point where there isn’t a calling for us here anymore,” says studio coordinator Susan Clark. “Lots of people from the creative sector are pushed out of the area, which makes ELP’s presence here redundant. We need to follow these people and find the next creative hub,” she explains.  

That will still be in East London, she promises. “We want to be in traveling distance of everyone we got here at the moment.”

We wish ELP good luck in finding a great new space and hope that it won’t be too far from here.

For a full listing of classes and events see: https://www.eastlondonprintmakers.co.uk

This article appeared in the August 2016 issue of LoveEast Magazine

Mustafa

Expert Tailor

I wonder how many times I’ve walked past Woolcrest Fabrics, located in a gap between buildings at 6 Well Street, without having had the slightest idea what treasures are to be found in this industrial brick warehouse.

Stacked from floor to ceiling, the infinite variety of colours and finishes of the fabrics can appear a bit overwhelming at first. But keep going and you will discover that everything is excellent value for money. There aren’t just fabrics to be discovered. With a clientele as vibrant as the merchandise, Woolcrest is one of the places that best represents the very essence of our neighbourhood. There is an African family animatedly discussing a selection of traditionally patterned fabrics, fashion students dressed in wonderfully outlandish clothes hunting for interesting materials for their latest projects, and women of diverse cultural backgrounds quietly browsing the oriental section of the warehouse.

And then I found Mustafa the tailor, the jewel in the crown. He sells fabrics once a week in exchange for a modest room right behind the warehouse. Mustafa is an affable, diligent and hardworking craftsman and very proud of his tailoring skills, and with good reason. He performs complicated alterations, expertly copies much-loved pieces of clothing, sews curtains and upholsters sofas and chairs. Indeed, his service goes beyond the perfect making of the items but he also takes a lot of trouble finding the right fabric or leather if it can’t be found at Woolcrest.

Born in Bulgaria, Mustafa emigrated to Bursa in Turkey with his family, where he spent most of his youth and began his training as a tailor. Since then he has lived in many places and worked in many professions. He was a gold merchant in Istanbul, a chef in Hannover and worked various jobs in Vienna before he came to London almost seven years ago. With no knowledge of English, he began working in a fish and chips shop. From the occasional tailoring he did in his spare time he quickly built a client base which eventually allowed him to give up his restaurant job.

Mustafa is extremely happy, now that he is able to live entirely from his craft. “From all the different jobs I’ve done, this is by far my favorite”, he says.

Musti can be reached at 07948 222045 or ask for him at Woolcrest on Saturdays between 9 a.m and 3 p.m.

This article appeared in the April 2016 issue of LoveEast Magazine.

AB Fine Art Foundry

The corridors of this beautiful Victorian warehouse and former dog biscuit factory are lined with bizarrely shaped moulds. In one huge room Gary Hume's shiny silver snowman sits forlornly in a dusty corner awaiting restoration. Pieces of an enormous pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama are ready to be welded together, and Gavin Turk's Self Portrait bronze statue is draped in cloth, restoration complete, waiting to be collected. In another room, American filmmaker and artist Philip Haas watches as his double-faced Francis Bacon wax cast is taken out of its mould.

Despite the foundry's glittering clientele, which reads like a Who's Who of the world's most celebrated artists (Tracy Emin, Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley to name a few), Jerry Hughes, the foundry’s manager, is refreshingly down to earth. He has run the place with Henry Abercrombie, the foundry's MD, since 1992 and is unfazed by the artworks that surround him. Jerry introduces us to bronze casting – a craft that dates back thousands of years – and in particular “lost wax casting”.

Once the artist's idea has materialised into a model, a mould is made from its shape. The inside of the mould is then covered with molten wax, and once cooled and hardened, the wax copy of the original model is removed from the mould. Next, a system of wax tubes, which provide ducts for pouring the metal during casting, are attached to the outside of the wax copy. The copy with its tubes is then dipped into a slurry of silica and covered with a sand-like crystalline silica. When heated in the kiln, the wax copy melts. More heat is added and the combination of slurry and grit transforms into a ceramic material that withstands the heat and pressure of molten metal.

The molten metal – bronze mostly – is then heated and poured into the ceramic shell, filling the space left by the wax (hence “lost wax casting”). The next day, the cast is released and the sculpture receives the finishing touches.

Every step in the process requires a great deal of skill, and that's evident in the 20 or so employees who work there. Some are artists themselves and most of them have been to art school. It was great to see so many skilled people at work, and there was a warm, family-like atmosphere at the foundry. But there was also a bit of magic in the air when after many laborious steps a sculpture is completed and stands there and shines in all its glory.

 www.abfineart.com

This article appeared in the January 2015 issue of LoveEast Magazine

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Fi Glover

Broadcaster and Writer

Fi Glover is a radio presenter whose voice will be familiar to many of you who tune in to BBCs Radio 4. Fascinated by radio from a very early age she was determined to become a broadcaster. After studying she joined the BBC as a trainee reporter and has presented many programs over the years. Listening to her on radio it’s obvious that she loves the medium as she is incredibly engaging and very natural.

She grew up in Winchester with her mother and her sister, while her dad worked in Hong Kong. Her childhood was characterized by a lot of travelling between the two places. After studying classical history and philosophy at the University of Kent she set foot in London permanently. It felt like a big leap when she eventually moved to Dalston 15 years ago. The area was rough and had a bad reputation, but Fi liked it from the very first moment. It was the affordable house prices that made her consider it but – more importantly – she immediately felt a huge affinity for the place. Quite contrary to her restless upbringing, Fi has become deeply rooted in Hackney, where she still lives with her husband and two children. “Just the thought of moving away from here makes her feel uncomfortable”, she says.

These days, Fi can he heard in two different Radio 4 broadcasts. The Listening Project, which records people’s conversations across the UK, is a format where people have rare and meaningful conversations with each other. The conversations are archived and preserved for future generations. These aural snapshots of our lives are very close to Fi’s heart - not least because they make participants happy, almost without exception. The show is incredibly popular and attracts 2 million listeners a week. The other, Two Rooms, involves two groups of voters sharing their contrasting experiences and feelings about how society in Britain is changing. It runs up until the general elections in May

Bar a stint presenting BBC2’s The Travel Show in the 1990s and participating in the Celebrity Bake Off in 2012, Fi has rarely been on screen. She’s not being recognized on the street (except by her voice sometimes) and likes it that way, she says. This might change though. Fi is currently on television once more fronting the new history reality series ’24 Hours in the Past’.

As much as she enjoys doing TV programs once in a while, she is definitely more at home at the radio. “It’s a comfortable, fuzzy, and lovely place to be”. One has no doubt that this is true when says that in her extraordinarily harmonious, calm and warm voice. 

What drew you to Hackney? I moved to Dalston in 1999 - I just liked it.  Way back then it was an affordable part of town too.  Although a bugger to get to from Television Centre in W12.  I think I liked that fact too!

Does the area influence your work? Yes - it has done hugely.  We have lived in several different parts of Hackney and Dalston over the last two decades and every one of them has a sense of community - every one has a different identity, every one has had wonderful people within it. Basically I chat for a living, and Hackney still chats!

What makes you most proud? My kids. And Mr Jones. Obv. (I am officially a Mrs Jones these days...). And also ‚The Listening Project’

What are you working on now? I've just finished a BBC 1 history show called 24 Hours in the Past - it's proper dirty, filthy, squalid living history where 6 well known people have to work like proper Victorians.  It's gorgeous and I don't want to give too much away but former Home Office Minister Anne Widdicombe spends a bit of time in a punishment cell.   I never thought I'd get to introduce that!

Best coffee in these parts? Mmm. At home probably.  

Where do you eat out? The Prince George, Bella Vita and Rotorinho for special nights. We walk home from school past Violet. Sometimes we succumb.

What do you do at the weekend? At the moment we do football, then football, then some gymnastics, then more football. (they are 9 and 7...)

Anything you would change? I don't like the high rises.

Hackney's best-kept secret? Well if I told you then......

If Hackney were human? Sheila Hancock

Hackney in a word? Home.

This interview appeared in the May 2015 issue of E9 Magazine 

Jo Davies

Ceramicist

Jo Davies’s love of ceramics was kindled as a young teenager at school when she had the opportunity to work on a pottery project. The intensity of the work and the encouragement of the teacher changed her way of thinking and gave her a foundation of self-esteem. “I just loved the material, its malleability and the fact that I could be so autonomous with just the hands as my tools,” she explains. She also admits that she was incredibly naïve back then. Ceramic is a very complex material. There are different clays, many ways of firing it and that’s before you start to think about glaze, where the possibilities are infinite.

While studying in Bath and later at the Royal College of Art, she came to love those tricky elements of her craft. A harder nut to crack for her was the fact that ceramic traditions, such as British studio ceramics, Stoke-on-Trent bone china or South East Asian traditions, seemed to weight heavily on what is seen as right or wrong way to produce ceramics. Jo rebelled against that. She wanted to work more creatively, artistically - with a mind unclouded by traditional requirements.

Jo comes from a sculptural point of view. “I wanted to be an artist - with a capital A - and was probably massively pretentious,” she says. Her earlier pottery work was mainly wall pieces, and nothing with a practical use. This changed during her time at the RCA when she started to focus on making functional ware. Vases are her favorite things to make. “They are nice sculptural vehicles that have a use – just about.”

Over the years, Jo has developed a unique aesthetic that fuses simplicity with humorous details. She works exclusively in hand-thrown porcelain and sticks to her signature black and white glazes (with occasional gilded gold leaf details).

It is fascinating to see how she morphs a basic piece of clay into a sophisticated object. Guided by Jo’s skillful hands, the clay on the throwing wheel takes the shape of a cone before it is transformed into a beehive and then opened up to give it a vessel shape. She smoothly and effortlessly pulls up the sides and brings them in a clear form. Once the object has dried a bit overnight it becomes more receptive and can be further shaped and sculptured.

“I slowly move and build tension in the body of the piece to really sharpen up the form.”

She uses sponges and her hands to make sure the final piece reflects the liquidity of the clay and the flow of the throwing process. This procedure happens over the course of a few days until it is ready to go into the kiln. Once it comes out it’s sanded and then glazed. The glazes have a very liquid, satin and tactile feel and further enhance the tension of the piece. For Jo, the way an object feels is equally important as the way it looks.

Asked if she’s still a bit rebellious she admits to still feeling a bit as an outsider in ceramics. Having said that, she acknowledges that she has just been selected for the Craft Potters Association. “I’m glad that they like what I’m doing but, oh my god, this is pottery establishment. It is a bit weird.”

 Jo’’s full range of items can be bought from her webshop: www.jo-davies.com. She offers tuition in wheel-thrown porcelain as well as a kiln firing service. Studio visits are welcome, please get in touch with her to arrange.

This article appeared in the July 2016 issue of LoveEast Magazine.

Julia Cook

Jeweller and owner of Branch on the Park

Nestled in the heart of Victoria Park Village is Branch on the Park, an independent jewellery store, founded by goldsmith Julia Cook. She opened her shop in 2010 after working from a studio in Soho for many years following her studies at Central Saint Martins.

The jewellery pieces are presented in wood-framed glass cabinets that reminded me of displays often seen in natural history museums. It’s topical, as most of Julia’a jewellery pieces are nature-themed or inspired by historic ornaments.

A recurring motif in Julia’s jewellery is leaves. They come in different shapes as ornate earrings, bracelets, pendants, brooches and necklaces. The delicate pieces are cut from silver or gold sheets and placed between two pieces of coarse paper before they're pressed trough a rolling mill. The paper gives each leaf a unique, slightly uneven imprint. In her workshop at the rear of the shop, Julia solders by hand all the elements that compose each piece of jewellery, and which makes every one a little different.

It’s the playful combination of stones – precious and semi-precious – and handcrafted gold or silver settings that make Julia’s style very distinctive. Her pieces convey lightness and positivity and you could imagine that these attributes transfer to the wearer. The many cards and photos from grateful and happy customers are certainly testament to that.

Besides the shop in the village, Julia also runs the webshop Blossoming Branch, with a large range of items for sale.

Even though it is time-consuming Julia loves talking to customers about their ideas for a commissioned piece. "It’s very personal because jewellery is sentimental. It’s a privilege to play a part in those moments in people’s lives,” she explains.

Branch on the Park, 27 Victoria Park Road, E9, or online at Blossoming Branch www.branchonthepark.co.uk

This article appeared in the January 2015 issue of LoveEast Magazine

Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh

Inventor and CEO of Sugru

On the ground foor of an old factory complex just off Well Street, something quite extraordinary is happening. According to a secret formula, colourful emulsions are mixed in a machine that looks like a giant dough kneader. The finished material is then divided up into small pieces and packed away into shiny little silver sachets. What happens here is the production of the world’s first mouldable glue – Sugru. It sticks to almost anything and turns into a strong and flexible rubber overnight – think play dough with superglue powers. Sugru can be used for any number of small DIY projects to make improvements and repairs on gadgets, appliances, toys and many other items. Once cured, it stays flexible and at the same time strongly bonds in all kinds of conditions. Sugru is so simple to use that it allows people to solve everyday problems on their own, without the help of a specialist.

Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh (pronounced nee-gull- queen-tigg) is the woman behind it all. Her childhood was spent on a farm in Ireland and that informed many of her values. “Growing up on a farm is almost the opposite of shopping – you grow food, prepare food, mend things and constantly improvise solutions,” she says. Sugru for Jane is an antidote to the throwaway mentality. She came to London to study product design
at the Royal College of Art, and while she was experimenting with various materials, she came up with a prototype of Sugru – using it to fix things around her house. That’s when the idea to create a fix-it-all material was born.

She started with just two people in a studio in Bethnal Green and it took her six years (and 8,000 lab hours) to come up with the perfect formula. Her goal was for the product to be in everybody’s kitchen drawer, and that’s what Jane and the company set out to make a reality.

Sugru launched in 2010 and the first 1,000 packets sold out in only a few hours. Today, Sugru is sold in over 6,000 stores and has more than one million users in 160 different countries. The Hackney-based company now employs 45 people. Interestingly, they have never needed to worry much about advertising the product. That’s done for them by the customers. Every few hours, someone uploads a picture on social media demonstrating Sugru’s usefulness.

The company is growing with enormous speed, but for Jane the most thrilling aspect of Sugru’s global success is the chance to promote a culture of creativity and resourcefulness. It’s what she has been passionate about from the very beginning and something she has never has lost sight of.

What drew you to Hackney? When I finished at the RCA I lived in West London. All the creative community I was friendly with lived in East London. Our first studio was in Bethnal Green and when we needed a bigger space we moved to Hackney. Once here we decided to stay in the area. You get kind of stuck here...

Does the area influence your work? Yes, there is something very nice about Hackney and that’s the sense of community here. There are a lot of other local companies we meet up with and share things with. For example, Technology Will Save Us in Vyner Street. With them and some other Hackney companies we went to New York for a joint project during New York Design Week. Internationally, Hackney’s reputation as a creative place is really growing. Hackney Council realise this and is busy promoting it as a location for foreign creative companies.

What makes you most proud? Probably two things. I’m very proud when I see how enthusiastic Sugru users are about the product. When I see that in action I think like “Oh, this is amazing...!” Also, there’s the atmosphere in the company. We have a really great collaborative team. People work hard but it’s also very rewarding. Hearing all the stories of how Sugru is used gives everyone a big sense of meaning and it’s very motivating for the team. I’m proud of that.

What are you working on now? We have just finished this huge crowd funding round. Now we have to figure out our plan for the United States. We have so many retailers there now – about 5,000 – but that will grow to 10,000 by the end of the year.

Best coffee in these parts? I don’t drink coffee, I drink tea. But I know people here are very big fans of Climpson & Sons and the E5 Bakehouse. I’m a fan of E5 Bakehouse because they have lovely mugs for tea.

Where do you eat out? Lunchwise probably E5 Bakehouse or Climpson. I love the Pavillion in Victoria Park. It is fab, especially in the summer.

What do you do at the weekend? We tend to travel a good bit. We go away one weekend in a month. The rest of the time tends to be fairly low key because work is so full on. We are doing up our house bit by bit. We do a lot of homey stuff like going out with the dog, seeing friends, etc. I find Hackney is so friendly – I think we know people in about 10 houses in our street.

Anything you would change? I am a little concerned how expensive everything is getting. For a lot of our staff and even for Sugru we don’t know how much longer we can stay here. That would be something I would change... or that properties are a bit more protected from residential development. When we moved into this building, there were 12 businesses. Now they’ve developed the rest of the building into luxury flats and we
are the only business left. To me that is a bit sad because we are creating jobs.

Hackney’s best-kept secret? Obviously Climpson’s Arch because I haven’t heard of the Thai restaurant there until just now. And the London Fields Lido is pretty special, but I’m not sure it’s a secret. It’s always so busy.

If Hackney were human? A very old eccentric person with a unique sense of style and humour.

Hackney in a word? Layered

www.sugru.com

This article appeared in the August 2015 issue of E9 Magazine