Long time, no see!

I’m happy to announce that Finch & Fouracre is getting back to business after 15+ months out of the game! 

I’m currently working on setting up my home studio. I decided that the time had come to say goodbye to the Whisky Bond, after 6 years tenancy, and handed back the keys in September of last year. I loved my studio there, but the commute from the southside of Glasgow, especially with a nursery run on the way, was getting to be too much. We were lucky enough to move house in January of last year (brilliant timing!) with the intention of me setting up a home studio. Before we knew it, we were in the midst of a global pandemic and I was pregnant with twins! Needless to say, work took a backseat. So now I’m adjusting (18 months after most people) to working from home.

I’ll also be working on my environmental policy. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, but I need to put down in writing what I’m doing to make environmental and sustainable decisions for my clients to see. While I’d like to think I’ve been someone who cares about the environment for some time, like many of us, my awareness of the climate crisis has really ramped up over the last couple of years. So I will be laying out what I do, and plan to do, from choices of materials, and use of harmful substances, to use of vehicles and fuels. 

And I do also have some paid work on. I’ve been lucky to have a steady trickle of enquiries while Finch & Fouracre has been on hold, and a couple of these are the right type of job that has come along at the right time. I’ll share more details about these once they’re further along (I’m always afraid I’ll jinx it if I give too much away too soon!), but they are really nice jobs to come back to. Both are for private clients, not business, and involve historical research, which I find fascinating. I’ve already had a trip to the Old Village of Lawers on the banks of Loch Tay, which was a lovely way to start getting my head back into work!

I am available to provide quotes for work, though the schedule is already filling up, and I’m not taking any jobs with tight deadlines at the moment. However, it is nice to be back at it, and I can’t wait to be reunited with my bandsaw!

Old Village of Lawers

Model making and architectural styles

From time to time I like to make these facade models - just one elevation of a building, as a way to really study and indulge in the detail. So I choose buildings with lots of detail, in a way to challenge myself. The one above is the most challenging I’ve done, the original St Enoch’s Subway entrance. Chosen because of how very detailed it is! This model is all hand-cut and assembled, no laser cutting here (and is available for sale, by the way!).

So recently I fancied doing another facade model, but wanted something that I could complete in a day or two. I thought about various modernist buildings, and settled on the Rietveld Schroder House, in Utrecht, an iconic design of the De Stijl movement. I was lucky enough to visit here as a teenager (with architects for parents, this is the kind of family holiday we went on!).

Image by creative commons

It turned out to be so much more complex than I’d imagined. It really shows the attention to detail that went into every part of this building. While the facade is made up of rectangles, they each layer and line up with each other, so creating that layered effect had to be well thought through before starting.

This was a real eye-opener for me. Yes, it was much quicker to produce than the St Enoch’s model. But something I thought of as visually simple turned out to have a lot to it. I’ve always loved modernist design - far more than anything like the ornate, late-Victorian style of the subway entrance - but thought it was a little boring from a model making perspective. I do love crafting the detail for a Victorian facade, and there’s plenty of good ones around Glasgow, but this has made me think twice about what simple actually means!