#chezmoi is a feature in which people take a photo of somewhere in their home and discuss five objects in that photo: the memories they conjure, the importance with which they hold them and any other random comments they inspire. The idea being to get an insight into the lives of others. That and to invade people’s homes.
My name is Lucy Henshall, I am 21 and I study art and history of art at the University of Edinburgh. I love living in Edinburgh, but although I grew up in Helsinki (the darkest place ever), I struggle with the gloomy winter months every year. Besides painting and studying, I work with KNEON magazine and am often also doing little things on the side. I am very visual and love to surround myself with inspiration.
This is a photo of ‘my little office’. A dining table that fits in my weirdly enormous bedroom, with basically everything I need in my daily life on it. I pretty much roll out of bed in the morning (trek across my room) to my desk and sort out my life before every day. Crucially, it has my sun lamp on it, which has been amazing so far in getting me through the winter dark.
1) Pencil case (centre left) – This is an ugly pencil case. I bought it in a moment of need when I couldn’t handle the amount of oil pastels I was buying. Cheap but essential, I suppose its kind of significant here as my course is to paint and I often take it around with me so that I can draw up sketches of things on the go. I find myself drawing people in cafes a lot.
2) Secret Walls sticker (on my laptop) – Secret Walls is one of the coolest events I’ve ever been to, it started just as street art and is now the only live art event in the world. It started in Shoreditch and now happens world wide, where street artists ‘battle’ and the crowd gets a say in who wins. I went to the first round ever back in its ‘birth place’ in October. It was super fun; I now have a bit of a dream to do live painting…
3) Flowers (centre top) – The flowers are fake… but roses and lilies (which you can’t see) remind me of home. It’s uplifting to have beautiful things around, even if they are just crappy fake ones.
4) Notebook (right of my laptop) – This doesn’t get used a lot, but every now and then I need to write stuff down to clear my brain. Sometimes I write down some weird and random ideas, even though I know they will never be realised.
5) The books and magazines (right) – These are all sources of visual inspiration. SICKY is the first printed edition of that magazine I bought in Amsterdam. The DALI book was bought for me at a market in Madrid this summer – its from 1970. There’s a magazine which is an exclusive collaboration between photographers printed onto newspaper also from Madrid this summer. And ‘street photography now’ was also a gift and has some of the most amazing photos I have ever seen.
Lucy Henshall
Lucy Henshall is a fourth year fine art student at Edinburgh College of Art. Her favourite things are the smell of Christmas at home and listening to loud music whilst she paints. In her spare time Lucy speaks Finnish and used to fence for Great Britain. She also played a tree in a play once. That was probably the scariest moment of her life.
To see Lucy’s art visit her webiste: www.lucyhenshall.com.
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