Paper Houses Connects with Camban Studio
We have been lucky this month to take part in many design markets, online and in person. Our favourite part of these markets is getting the chance to chat with all of you and other creatives. With our monthly makers blog, we hope to share this with you!
Fiona - Camban Studio.
This month we have chatted to another of our lovely creative coven.
1. Tell us who you are and what you do?
Hi, I’m Fiona. My brand name is Camban Studio and I create print designs, printed textiles and hand (slow) stitched textiles.
My subject matter always comes from my wanderings in the local natural landscapes around Aberdeen and in Scotland. I’m always mindfully looking around me at colours and shapes and the plant life and my prints develop from there.
I enjoy using really beautiful fabrics, so you’ll find me mostly working with natural fibres like wool, linen, cotton, silk and cashmere.
I’m also really enjoying my continual learning about natural dyes and plant-based printing techniques like eco-printing.
2. Why are you a creative?
I think it’s just a natural part of who I am? I’ve always been creative, and when my creativity has been curbed in the past I felt like I wasn’t really being me!
A love of textiles came from childhood I think. My Granny was a skilled embroiderer and sewer and my other Granny was always knitting or crocheting or creating something, she even turned her hand to furniture upholstery. Maybe it’s inevitable that I picked up working with my hands in some way?
I enjoy making work. I enjoy the process of seeing something, an idea in my head, then making it into a real-life thing and having the ability to do that. It gives a great sense of satisfaction. And I find it very therapeutic!
3. If you could go back in time and tell yourself one thing when you started out what would it be?
I would probably tell myself not to study Product Design. It probably wasn’t the right discipline for me and I think having some more time on a general design first year would have set me on a different path, maybe directly to studying jewellery or textiles. Also, I was probably a bit young when I left home to go to Art School. I maybe should have learned a bit more about the world more?!
But on the other hand, I believe that everything usually works out how it’s meant to. There are lots of things that I learned through studying product and service design that influences how I work, and things that have happened along the way that’s made me who I am now and made me ready in whatever way for what I do now, so it’s all good. I keep learning all the time, and I hope I never give up learning. You never know, one day I might go back to product design!
4. What's your favourite task/job to do and your worst?
I love just sitting sewing in my studio. And I also love the process of screenprinting. Choosing colours, fabrics, mixing pigments, printing and then when you lift the screen to see the result – I love the feeling of that moment!
I don’t really like selling my work, to be honest!! It isn’t something that comes naturally to me as an introvert! It’s pretty difficult getting in that mindset of actively trying to get people to buy what I make. I love doing markets apart from the selling bit though! I’d quite happily talk textiles with people all day!
5. What song/podcast gets you in the zone?
Ooh, my playlist is mainly full of confident women doing their thing! That’s mainly my jam. Depends on my mood though, sometimes I like quiet contemplative sad songs when sewing, other times I might like upbeat to get me dancing songs when printing!
Thank you, Fiona, for sharing an insight into your world as a creative! I hope you have enjoyed hearing about Camban Studio, pop over to Fiona’s Instagram page to keep following on with her work and beautiful capturing’s of her day today.
