Florence Houston

Hi Florence, how would you describe yourself?

– Probably quite eccentric. I operate on a very visual level — I’m really thinking about everything that I see, excited by colors and shapes and textures. Quite sociable, but then not very sociable at other times. Antisocial slash social.

Who were you as a kid?

– I liked making people laugh. Maybe a bit mad. I think I was quite crazy as a child.

When did art find you?

– I sketched a lot and I remember sketching my grandmother when I was 12. That moment pretty much decided that I wanted to be an artist. I pushed to be in the special part of the art room at school,  it was like the place to be, and I knew I could do it. Then I got a scholarship to my next school and mainly just focused on my painting. I didn’t really do much revision for my other classes because I knew I was going to be an artist. That’s what I prioritised. My parents were very supportive and my art teachers were very encouraging. I made the decision so early on that I was going to be an artist that that’s just what I’ve been focusing on.

I love the jellies paintings, when did you start making them?

– Almost ten years ago. It was an idea first — I suddenly thought, God, that would be a really beautiful thing to paint. Such a strange, mysterious thing, a jelly. And I didn’t realise how mysterious they were until I started making them. It’s real chemistry — the gelatin leaf, the ratio, the different molds: copper, ceramic, glass, aluminum, rubber. Each one needs different care. It’s quite an intense, stressful journey. Not for the faint-hearted. 

Before art school I was just doing drawings and paintings of my siblings or from magazines. Then I went to Charles Cecil in Florence. I found it through an artist called Julian Barrow who was friends with my parents and with Charles, and he told them that if I was serious about learning to paint in oils I should go to this school. The first year you’re just doing drawing, charcoal, cast drawings of famous sculptures, all about shapes and training your eye. Then learning about shade and values, dark and light. So that when you come to paint in your second year you don’t have to think so much about shapes or tonal values; you’re just focusing on handling the paint and mixing colors.

What was the hardest thing to learn at Charles Cecil?

– You’re taught to draw and paint in a whole new way,  it’s called sight size. I stand back here, my easel is there, and whatever I’m painting is there. I observe from a distance, then walk forward and make a mark, then walk back. The method is that you should look at your work from a distance, because if you’re up close you can’t see how the top of your painting relates to the bottom. You have to see it all in one visual shot. Then your painting has the power to travel across a room and be as effective from eight meters away as up close.

Does that way of seeing follow you outside the studio?

– I’m always walking backwards when we’re hanging a painting or doing up the house — just to get some distance. And with everything, you can see things better from further away. In the same way, you can only really look back on a time and know if you were happy or sad when you’re a few months past it. It gives you clarity in time as well as in space.

And in your personality, do you see it there too?

– Yeah, I’m very methodical and slow. I do things really precisely but it takes me a while. If you want a job done fast, don’t call me. I like to do a lot of research and be certain about everything before I launch into it.

What are you working on right now?

– I’m working on a series of paintings involving gloved hands and some trompe l’oeil.

If you could have any project in the world, what would it look like?

– To be given a room somewhere that was just for me to do anything to. Design the space itself, the plasterwork, the floor, everything, and then create paintings that work as a group for that room specifically. A permanent room built for the paintings.

A museum worth visiting right now?

– At the moment I’m into the little rooms of Dutch still lifes at the National Gallery. There’s a sense of humour that runs through some of them that I enjoy.

Who made you want to make things beautiful?

– As a young teenager it was probably Marilyn Monroe. I was very obsessed with her,  the way every image was just aesthetically incredible. She was a photographer’s dream. Whatever way she sat or stood, something clicked into place. I think it was the graphic quality of her: very defined features, a clear-cut shape to her hair and figure. You could do a cut-out of her. Nothing messy.

Today I’m still very inspired by the 1950s, the colors, the clean shapes, the shiny textures. But I like things with a certain darkness. Nothing too beautiful. If something is designed to be the most beautiful thing, I don’t find it inspiring. Beauty is a balancing act between almost repulsion and perfection. If anything is just perfect it’s so boring. It has to be teetering on the knife’s edge of yuck and wonderful.

How does a painter’s home look, what’s the aesthetic at yours?

– Geordie and I started a WhatsApp group of inspirational interiors — fabrics, sofas, lights — five years before we even bought our house, just to find where our styles overlapped. Like a Venn diagram. And there is a sliver of overlap. We can most liken it to a Stanley Kubrick aesthetic, round shapes, solid color. I don’t love pattern so much, but I think pattern is necessary to break up planes of solid color. Clean, not too fiddly.

Walk us through the colors.

– I always wanted yellow cupboards in the kitchen — it’s west and south facing so it’s always filled with sun, and I wanted to emphasize that warmth. The floor is gray, so the yellow offsets that cold gray, and the walls are a porridge color to complement both. Then we found these lights with an apricotty tone — and rather than contrasting the yellow with green or blue, we stayed in one corner of the color wheel: yellow cupboards, creamy walls, apricotty orange lights, terracotta curtains. The other room is more lavender — that was Geordie’s choice. I didn’t like it at first, but I sat with it, and then matched it with a turquoise blue on the woodwork and realized I could like it. It makes a great backdrop for the colourful book spines and the Fanny Shorter fabric on the sofa — that very graphic, punchy 1950s-60s feel, the pink and the tealy blue.

If you had to live inside one colour combination forever?

– I think pink is a magical colour — it goes with everything, literally everything. If I had to choose right now… pink and orange.

A philosophy you try to live by?

– I try to be more ceremonial in everything I do, to treat everything as art. With two children it’s quite hard because you just want to survive the day. But I try to be present for each moment, get dressed the right way, put effort into every aspect of the day. It’s all about being present rather than just racing through to the next thing.

Where are you in all of it right now — life, work, everything?

– I’m in a fairly intense period where my life is tightly carved up into time with my children or time at the studio and barely anything else. It’s tiring but I’m happy.

When friends come for dinner, what does the evening look like?

– My husband makes negronis. I like making anything with a shortcrust pastry, mainly puddings because they’re so beautiful. I’m trying to be more interested in main courses, but most of the time we just buy a shepherd’s pie from our local butcher and pretend we’ve made it.

Summer plans?

– Geordie is making a film so we can’t make too many plans. I’m looking forward to being in the garden — the children love the paddling pool or running through the sprinkler, we’ll have friends over and Geordie will start trying to make the most refreshing drink of all time, all over again.

Three things we shouldn’t miss in your corner of London?

… Coffee and an indecently sized croissant at Layla’s on Churchfield Road, the tropical greenhouses at Kew Gardens, and then zip into central London to visit Lyndsey Ingram to see whatever show they have on.

What’s in your glass?

– Coffee and water. And I love a martini. I also really like Merlot, unpopular as that is since Sideways.

And in the kitchen — what do you love to make?

– Tarts — shortcrust pastry with different fillings. I’m obsessed with puddings, actually. I always think of pudding as proof of how civilised we are as a society. Food has gone so far past its purpose of keeping us alive — the main course is sort of doing that, but the pudding is just this colourful, unnecessary afterthought, a little feast for the eyes. A showy, beautiful full stop at the end of a sentence.

An object you’d never throw away?

– I really love anything made of Bakelite. That telephone there has a feel to it that I really love, it’s creamy, soft and heavy. And this is strange, but there’s a green glitter rubber duck we won from a petrol station claw machine. Green glitter with a pink beak,  the colors are just amazing. It’s in my bathroom. There are a lot of aesthetic objects I can’t get enough of.

A book you return to?

– The Japanese Dictionary of Color Combinations. A tiny little book with tabs of colors. Really good for anyone interested in color — art or design.

What’s playing in the studio?

– Podcasts mostly; Rolling Stone Music Now, The Rest Is Politics, Critics at Large by The New Yorker. I’m interested in contemporary culture and the cyclical element of trends. Why do we rotate through them? Five years ago everyone wanted big bushy eyebrows and now it’s the 90s brow. I think it’s a roughly 30-year rotation, but it moves faster now because of Instagram, something beautiful comes along, everyone copies it, it gets oversaturated, and then we’re sick of it. A very fast turnover.

How do you switch off?

– Action films. Apocalyptic ones. That’s how I relax. It’s an antidote to comfortable life — it fulfills a need for danger from the safety of your sofa.

A place that stays with you?

– India. The colors, the smells, the temperature, the balminess. Going on a train through India with the windows all open, the doors all open, that nice breeze, the feeling that it’s about to rain, going through paddy fields. It’s like a dream that’s in reality but not in reality.

Who are you wearing?

– Probably Awake Mode,  I just like their silhouettes, everything’s a little different. But my best clothes are probably the ones I’ve inherited from my mother or my grandmother. My mother never throws anything away, so I have all her clothes from when she was young. And they last so much better.

A scent that’s yours?

– My husband has a very sensitive nose and always said he hated the smell of perfume, so that rather cut it out for me. But if I had one, I’d go for something citrus. I have a pelargonium at home called Mabel Grey,  the leaves smell unbelievable. That would be my favourite smell.

When do you most need to be alone?

– I always need time by myself to re-energize after socializing. I’m very happy spending time alone and find it very restorative. But I also really like seeing my friends. I need both.

Find her at florencehouston.com.