Page 16 - Homes & Interiors Scotland

IN THE FRAME

[Above] The th-century façade of Hospitalfield House. [Right] Graham Image: Louise Coupar
Fagen’s Scheme for Our Nature installation at the Palazzo Fontana

Lucy Byatt

Lucy is the director of the Hospitalfield arts centre in Arbroath and curator of Scotland + Venice
with artist Graham Fagen. Next year she hopes to raise nearly four million pounds to
commission architects Caruso St John to realise the first stage of the redevelopment of the
historic house, which was one of Scotland’s first art schools

HAS BEING AT HOSPITALFIELD ALTERED YOUR place of work for artists and a generous host to our visitors. I
SENSE OF STYLE? Everything about the design of have also got to know the 16th-century Palazzo Fontana very
Hospitalfield is extraordinarily detailed – there’s hardly a well, the location for Graham Fagen’s exhibition in Venice.
surface without a carving, emboss or inlay. The principles Facing the Grand Canal, the light in the rooms is astonishing
that lie behind this 19th-century celebration of creativity against the splendid Venetian details.
and craft are wonderful ideals and I really enjoy watching a
WHAT IS YOUR DREAM HOME? The Schindler House in
first-time visitor’s process of discovery. I love the fantastical
Los Angeles, built by Rudolf Schindler in 1921. It’s the way the
interiors but I need a little more simplicity in my own home.
garden is almost inside the living space that I like so much.
WHO ARE YOUR MAIN INFLUENCES AND HEROES?
WHAT IS YOUR OWN HOME LIKE? I live in house
One of my greatest heroines is the writer and critic Lucy
designed ten years ago for the Director of Hospital field. It
Lippard. She was born in New York in 1937 and has written
has big windows looking out across fields to the North Sea.
many books on art, particularly about the way in which art
I’m surrounded by art and my huge ceramics collection.
makes relationships to the place in which it is sited. She was
very close to the artist Robert Smithson and it was probably HOW DO YOU RELAX? Gardening. The walled garden
her influence that encouraged him to make a series of here is a wonderful place. I work with brilliant volunteers on
temporary works in the landscape, where he poured glue it, and we opened to the public this year for the first time. It
and then asphalt down the sheer wall of a quarry – like huge takes seven years for a truly great garden to mature – each
drawings in a landscape, fleeting artworks, so extraordinary year we see it getting more complex and interesting.
that they will continue to exist in our imaginations for ever. WHAT’S SCOTLAND’S GREATEST ATTRIBUTE?
WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE BUILDING? Hospitalfield – The Arbroath Smokie – a wonderful, simple process for
I spend all my waking hours thinking about how to make it a preserving excellent, simple food.

HOMES & INTERIORS SCOTLAND