Karen’s Victorian cottage is familiar, I have been here before, but stepping over the threshold, everything has changed. Apparently it all started with the porch. “We wanted to make an entrance,” she smiles. “Previously, visitors walked straight into the kitchen, so we looked into filling in the porch to make an entrance way, but the porch is one of the best features of the house and we also thought that it would be very expensive to build.”
A rather radical thought had been in the back of her mind, but seemed too impossible to achieve. “I’d had the idea for years, really,” Karen explains. “I thought how amazing it would be to move the kitchen and be able to see the garden through the french doors, as it was such a dark and gloomy room where it was.” This still appeared to be an impossibility, so they got a quote for altering the porch. The price that came in was so much that it made the dream kitchen idea seem reasonable.
In fact, the kitchen move turned out to be even less of an upheaval than anticipated. They were able to use the loft space for all the plumbing and pipes so relocating the room was surprisingly easy. There was an advantage during the build too, as they could also use the existing kitchen while the new one was being built (what bliss). For a while they even had the luxury of two kitchens. The kitchen switch has been a complete success. “It has opened up the house completely and we use the whole space a lot more now,” she says.
The new kitchen is very different to the old one and at first Karen wasn’t sure that it would work. “I wanted clean modern lines, but this is a Victorian house and I worried that there would be a clash of styles,” says Karen. “But I didn’t like any of the traditional ones that we saw. I remember being in one place and the woman saying, ‘have what you want, it’s your kitchen,’ which suddenly freed me up.”
Karen then found clarifying the look and feel that she wanted much easier. “I didn’t want handles, I wanted a simple, streamlined shape.” In the end they chose a German make; freestanding, but fitted – apparently it is usual for Germans to take their kitchens with them when they move, so the units are designed to come out and be moved around. There are no cupboards and no wall units; “I don’t like wall units,” she says unapologetically. Instead, there are large drawers that are wonderfully deep and easy to use, some of them ingeniously pulling out to reveal specialised spaces for recycling and storage of bulky items and equipment.
Big changes are not new for Karen and her husband, Piano expert David Manson. They relocated to the house from Harrow around 14 years ago. Karen is originally from Kent, so it seemed like a good place to move to, although both worked in London. Karen was a textile designer. “When I had Dominic I was able to work from home and then carried on, working from this house once we came down here.”
Inevitably though, parts of the design process became computerised and Karen found that the new practices took away some of the creativity and spontaneity of the work. Also, she says “I got a bit tired of re-inventing tartan.” She came to a conclusion; “I’m going to give up textile design and become a painter,” she announced to husband David. Perhaps there was an intake of breath, someone sat down in a chair. It was a big decision, but one that has paid off in many ways. Karen stopped travelling to London, was able to fit her work around the needs of the family. She had time to explore the local environment, gaining inspiration from trips to the coast and surrounding countryside, visiting places like Great Dixter, and Derek Jarman’s garden at Dungeness.
She held her first show back in 2008 at Handmade Frames in Rolvenden. “The late great Micky Wilson framed the work. I exhibited in the gallery there, then got accepted at the Rye gallery and it went from there.” Karen now exhibits regularly at West End House Gallery in Smarden amongst others, but says, “I guess the house is my main gallery,” and has been holding open studio events at home for several years, the last two with fellow artist, ceramicist Kate Schuricht.
“The place that explains my work best is my home. My art reflects my home and my home reflects my art,” she says succinctly. But isn’t opening up the house for private views and Open Studio events an imposition? “Not at all, I enjoy it!” she says. “I also think that it helps people to see the art in a home; seeing it in a gallery is different and it can be hard to visualise the spaces.” Most of the walls downstairs are painted in Farrow and Ball’s Strong White, but there is a tiny area downstairs with beautiful, highly coloured wallpaper. It is a print from a tapestry and has a textured look, corresponding well with the red wall opposite. “I would go stronger elsewhere too,” she explains, “but the artwork needs to go on plainer walls to be shown off to good effect.” Every wall features Karen’s work, but because the spaces are homely it doesn’t feel at all like an art gallery.
The smallest room downstairs is the room they call the snug. “This is our winter sitting room,” she says. It’s small and cosy and has a distinct mid-century modern feel. One of David’s pianos fits perfectly along one wall and on the other side of the room is a sixties sideboard that the couple found in a skip back in Harrow. The walls are panelled and there is a sweet little fireplace, enhancing the warmth and ‘snugness’ of the room.
We head upstairs and a pale blue light washes down, bringing an uplifting and serene feeling to the climb, as if we are heading into a coastal sky. Up on the landing, the artworks are coloured with gorgeously calming blues and greens. “These are my colours,” she says, adding, “I do like a bit of turquoise.” The soft, sea coloured scheme is particularly effective in the bathroom, where shells and beach finds are beautifully assembled on various surfaces. The bathroom is spacious – and this is partly due to the ingenious way that the lavatory is partitioned away from the bath area, making it separate, but still part of the room.
All the bedrooms are decorated in quiet ocean shades. Gone are the children’s murals and daughter Gabby’s pink and purple colour scheme, now that everyone is grown up. In the master bedroom it is easy to spot which side of the bed is Karen’s. There’s a carefully arranged collection of treasures – like a memory corner, reminders of her travels and of loved people. The dressing table was from her grandmother and was originally a writing desk. “All these little things are just objects that I love,” she says. “I love little dolls.” The two latest are puppets brought back from a recent trip to India. “Collecting these things is a way of bringing the memories along with you,” she says wistfully.
At the top of the house is Karen’s office space and a workroom. This was where her studio was when the children were little, but it was not ideal, especially as her paintings tend to be large and hard to manoeuvre and she had to keep taking them up and down stairs to look at them properly. They bought the field next to them some ten years ago and the stable in the field was an obvious place for her studio. “It’s quite important to have the studio away from the house,” she says, “as I come away from the house and the domestic chores.” She pauses, then says, “It’s sometimes hard to leave the studio and go back to the house…”. The area outside Karen’s studio is full of plants and fabulous colour from late summer perennials. “I guess we’ve done a lot to the house, but we’ve actually done more to the garden,” she says. “There were just a couple of shrubs in it when we first moved here.” There is a division of labour – of sorts. “David does vegetables in the polytunnel. I do the rest.”
Back downstairs and we are in the room that was once the kitchen, which has been turned into a sleek, but comfortable sitting room and been given a monochrome makeover. The simple, clean look makes the room look bigger and highlights objects and art pieces in the room. My eye is immediately drawn to a pair of Kate Schuricht’s stunning ceramics by the wood burner. A large walnut cabinet in the corner of the room contrasts with the monochrome. It was inherited from an aunt “and actually this was the only place in the house where it would go.” Just as well, because it looks – and fits – perfectly.
Memory and a response to the experiences of a place is a key part of Karen’s paintings. Life is a series of experiences that pass and are often lost. Memories shift and swirl in our minds, settling for an instant and then moving on. Karen catches these moments in her work, creating dreamy memory-scapes of remembered views; the countryside, coast and her own garden. “A lot of my work is memory based; I’m trying to create an impression of the view, a remembrance of the light and the landscape, the way the wind moved so that the paintings take on a dreamy wistful feel.”
As the house has evolved and changed, so Karen’s art is taking on a new shape. “I don’t look back really, I like to try new things. The painting I’m currently working on is always my favourite and then, once I’ve finished it, it’s the next one that I love most.” Currently there are influences appearing from different sources – the recent trip to India has inspired some beautiful paintings with a definite Eastern air. Hints of temples and flashes of gold appear in Karen’s characteristically pared back, dreamy canvases. There are also some new ceramic pieces, perhaps inspired by working closely with ceramicist Kate. These are framed and hung on the wall as if they are paintings, but are both solid and tangible objects and ethereal mood-scapes at the same time.
Karen and Kate’s artwork looks good in a home setting, and it’s obviously a flourishing partnership. “What’s so fantastic is that our work complements one another’s so well,” says Karen. “It gave us the idea to approach West End House and suggest a group show.” They have brought together glass maker, Max Jacquard (whose amazing glass dishes – cast from river-beds – are on the dining room table), photographer Marek Emczek Olszewski and wood sculptor Tom Aylwin and together formed a show called ‘A Collective View’ opening at West End House Gallery on 9 September.
Karen and David have completely transformed their home and surroundings, taming the outside space from an unkempt field into a proper garden and turning the house from an ordinary cottage – with pink carpets and yellow satin walls, into a spacious, light-filled home that reflects their personalities. It has become the perfect backdrop for both Karen’s artworks and their many treasured possessions. Leaving now, I can’t remember what the house was like before its transformation. That slippery memory thing is up to its tricks again.
