Still Life Stories - It's Our Luca!
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Still Life Stories - an opportunity to take a look inside the creative homes of real people, who couple stylish with the everyday.
For this edition of the ‘Still Life Stories’ series, we’re taking a look inside our Luca’s flat.
Luca is a proper Stockport girl, born in Edgeley and never lived anywhere too far away, she's been heavily invested in the town's regeneration since her teenage years. As well as working in the shop part time she is also a visual artist and Creative Director at a creative studios in Oldham.
She's worked in the shop since way back in 2019, not long after we first opened. She was renting a desk in an art studio above the shop, so when we needed an extra pair of hands her visible passion for design coupled with her friendly, down to earth Northern humour meant she was right in from the get go.
Luca exists in an alternate, visual world and it's her keen eye for colour, shape, texture coupled with sentimental or unique artefacts that make for really imaginative visual experiences that tell a story.
She shares her flat (the upstairs of a larger than average Central Stockport terraced house) with her boyfriend, 2 cats Polly and Pearl and a white snake called 'Lemsssip'. Her nickname for her home is ‘flat chateau’ as although it’s modest, she treats it like her own castle at the top of a hill by bringing in rich colours and infusing a little bit of grandeur.
My description of Luca's place is like a very colourful & creative storyboard of her life. It is stylish, yet undone, relaxed and laid back with a tonne of unique personal touches like photos, an ever growing artwork collection and souvenirs from her travels.
My description of Luca's place is like a very colourful & creative storyboard of her life. It is stylish, yet undone, relaxed and laid back with a tonne of unique personal touches like photos, an ever growing artwork collection and souvenirs from her travels.
Products featured above: Lavender bunch
Colour features heavily in Luca's home (primary reds, blues & yellows as well as rich greens). We asked her to expand on the colour choices in her home...
I LOVE primary colours and colours in their richest form - a good medieval pallet.
The colour choices for each room depend on the light and usage, for instance I’ve leaned into the darkness of the hall/landing and gone with a deep green. In the bedroom I want to feel cool so I’ve got cooler blues, and in the living room it’s always so sunny, so I’ve got the sandy yellow in there.
Luca's home is filled with curiosities that are totally unique to her space, we were dying to ask - where do you find things for your home?
As I'm sure a lot of people do these days, I have a potentially unhealthy addiction to Facebook Marketplace. But I also trawl vintage shops and warehouses, antique shops, charity shops, markets, car boots - the usual suspects! I have been known to salvage out of skips and get lucky with items outside of houses with a 'free' label on them. I also make a point of searching these types of places when I'm away too, as the objects I find always surprise me. I once strapped a massive old rolled up map I found in a rural french junk shop to the ceiling of my car during a road trip and took it hundreds of miles round France before returning home.
Products Featured above: Rice Paper Shade
Tell us more about how your artistic practice feeds into your home?
I don’t really have much of my own artwork on the walls at home to create some distance from the studio and give me a chance to collect other people’s artwork (which I LOVE)! However, I have begun to see my home as more of a ‘set’ that I’ve created, so my artistic practice comes in through that - painting blue flowers as a ceiling rose, creating papier maché cat heads for the bed posts, following the paint line across onto the curtains to create illusions, that kinda thing. I love a bitta theatre.
Where do you look for interior inspiration?
The past mostly! I'm well into history and visiting period houses, churches and things, and I'm an avid watcher of period dramas. I recently discovered a word that perfectly describes my obsession with the past - Anemoia: Nostalgia for a time you've never known. I also love to visit artists houses and art collectors houses, 2 recent inspirational trips were in Cambridge - Kettles Yard and David Parr House, they each have very different aesthetics but both equally inspirational in the way they bring art into the home.
Products featured above: Barro Serving Dish, HAY Sowden Kettle, Moorlands Candle Sticks, Mali Espresso Mug
Do you spend much money on your home, how do you source things if not?
I've not really had a lot of money to spend on it, so I've got pretty savvy at finding bargains. It means trawling a LOT on facebook marketplace and regularly just searching 'free near me' on there, just incase there's something special I didn't know I needed. My money gets spent on art mostly, as artwork is (rightly) expensive, but I have paid in installments for lots of pieces - a lot of artists are more than willing to set up a payment plan for artwork, just ask! I also get pretty crafty with things too, teaching myself to upholster and that kinda thing, then I can make something really cheap look really spenny!! Another top tip would be to go and look at the mixed paints reduced at B&Q whenever you're in there, usually on a trolley by the paint counter, I've had some cracking finds there.
How do you add your own personal little touches - photo's / souveniers of trips?
As I mentioned I'm always bringing special things back from trips. I also like to print photographs of when we're out exploring and curate them amongst the artwork on the walls. A particular favourite is a picture of a group of cows taken on a French mountain by my friend Freya, I remember the moment they appeared and the racket of their bells vividly and everytime I look at it in the bathroom, I'm back there! I guess I'm always creating a story of my life and curating little moments to live amongst.
Products featured above: Cedar Aroma Diffuser Lamp,
Products featured above: Strawberry Garden Poster,
To finish, we asked - what’s the soundtrack of your home?
Oh that depends on the time, in the morning it’s usually the NTS breakfast show (the dancier the better), throughout the day if I’m home it’ll be some quirky tape that my boyfriend picked up from All Night Flight in town that just sounds like pure drone or medieval flute, or when I’m cooking I literally say to the google - ‘play fire sounds’, again, for the drama. Of course, there’s always the constant chorus of Pearl’s singing too.
Thank you for sharing your home with us Luca. My top takeaways were:
1. This is the kind of style you cant buy - Luca's place is the polar opposite of over-contrived, matchy-matchy, trend-lead design we're so often being fed as 'inspiration'.
. 2. I feel instantly relaxed in this type of space.
3. I need to check my facebook market place
