High on Color with Bethan Laura Wood

Bethan talks about her many inspirations deriving from spending time in different countries while travelling. She explains how she lets color speak to her designs and patterns while explaining the design processes of her latest creations. Her love for Mexico strongly comes forward in the conversation and how the Mexican color palette has influenced her work. Bethan has always had an interest in the relation between people and the object and how she can reinforce that relation through time, and of course, color. 

Bethan Laura Wood has run a multidisciplinary studio since 2009 characterised by materials investigation, artisan collaboration and a passion for colour and detail. Residencies and location-based projects have become an important factor in her design process, often working in response to her location, in collaboration with local manufacturers, or reflecting back into her work the visual and material culture particular to that area. Bethan is fascinated by the connections we make with the everyday objects that surround us and, as a collector herself, likes to explore what drives people to hold onto one particular object while discarding another. Bethan explores these relationships and questions how they might become cultural conduits. She is interested in critical approaches to achieving sustainability within mass consumption and the production-driven context of the design industry.

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Transcript

Judith van Vliet: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Color Authority podcast. Today is an exciting day because I'm interviewing Bethan Laura Wood. Bethan has run a multidisciplinary studio since 2009 characterized by materials investigation, artisan, collaboration and a passion for color and detail. Residencies and location based projects have become an important factor in her design process often working in response to her location in collaboration with local manufacturers or reflecting back into her work the visual and material culture particular to that area. Bethan is fascinated by the connections we make with the everyday object that surrounds us and as a collector herself likes to explore what drives people to hold on to a particular object while discarding another. Bethany explores these relationships and question how they might become cultural conduits she is interested in critical approaches to achieving sustainability within mass consumption and the production driven context of the design industry. Good afternoon, Bethan, how are you? And welcome to the Color Authority.

Bethan Laura Wood: Hello, I'm very well, thank you. Just in the middle of Design Week.

Judith van Vliet: Prep but no, I'm very goodness with all the passing of the Queen obviously London is the place to be currently.

Bethan Laura Wood: Yes, there's a lot of things happening in London at the moment.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah so I always start all of my podcasts with that very same question. I've been having great answers and a lot of people have similar answers and very curious to yours to that first question, which is what is color to you, Bethan?

Bethan Laura Wood: Well, color is everything to me in some ways. It's one of the main ways in which I digest the world around me and express myself. It's a conduit, I think, for myself and a lot of people to make a dialogue together or a way to make dialogue and it's something I've always been drawn to because I read one.

Judith van Vliet: Of your late interviews and it says that indeed color is the language that you use most. Now, obviously most people don't see you currently. I think most people know how colorful you are and also how you dress and obviously your designs. That's why, obviously I was so intrigued to interview you. Now, if you speak color, if that is indeed your language what is it that you're communicating to your audience through your designs?

Bethan Laura Wood: It depends on the project. I class myself as a mixed discipline designer so I do quite a wide range of work but quite often I enjoy especially my limited edition and one off pieces making works that have a conversation within them that uses colors as part of that conversation.

Judith van Vliet: I think you agree for me, color is obviously I have a color popcorn. I'm a color consultant myself but it's interesting how you also say that what intrigues you is how people hold on to a certain product handles. Are you very often doing single pieces? Not a lot of, obviously, mass production because you want people to hold on to an object before actually discarding it? Again, what happened. You're finding so far, why do people hold onto a certain object? Why do you think that is, and what role does color play in this?

Bethan Laura Wood: Well, I think the answer to what makes somebody hold onto an object is the $60 million question. And I think that's maybe the question that most designers are hoping to find an answer to. And I wouldn't say I necessarily have the answer to that, but it's something that I'm always interested in, how people or what makes an emotional connection between people and objects. And for me, in relation to color, even though quite often we have windows in the design where we're more experimental with color, and then windows and design in general where culturally we're more safe, let's say, with color or minimal with color. But I think it's because color has such a kind of strong reaction that people have an emotional reaction to color. It may be good or it may be bad, but it's there. And I think, for me, that's one of the emotional elements that I like to play with and why I like to use color a lot in my work. Not all my work has color in it, but a majority has color in it. I've always been fascinated by those kind of nuances of colors or color combinations or proportions of colors that set off certain things in my brain and then in other people's brains that connect them to a particular period of time or a particular style or something that makes that kind of emotional connection. And so I think that's quite often an element that I work with within my work or I explore within my work. Does that make sense?

Judith van Vliet: You just said sometimes absence of color, or maybe not absence of color, but people that are less inclined towards, let's say, color and people that are more inclined to use color. How do you see these culturally different, even in Europe or on different continents? Do you see a lot of those difference with the people that you work with?

Bethan Laura Wood: Obviously, I'm a British designer. I predominantly have been educated, and most of my nuance or understanding of color comes from a basis, from a European viewpoint or a British viewpoint. I think when I started to explore other countries or be invited to make work. For example. When I first went to Mexico City. Which is a very different part of the world. To London. For me. It was so eyeopening to understand the nuance of color and the kind of spectrum of color in the everyday. In just the baseline of what builds an environment. Is kind of completely different in Mexico. And there's a much stronger, braveness, and celebration of color as a default setting in somewhere like Mexico. And so for me, that was so amazing to experience and learn from and gain an understanding in how to have a complexity with colors that often in the west or from my European viewpoint, we quite often combine, like, strong, bold colors with things that are for children or that kind of rainbow quantitation being for children. But when you see the sophistication of a color grouping in Mexico, where it's the nuance of these incredibly strong colors, but the balance between them is a much more mature and amazing and combination of things. And it just drove me bonkers, and I was a very happy bunny. And I learned a lot from Mexico, and I'm still learning and being inspired by visiting different countries, different places that have these relationships with color that you can in some ways, because color is such a visual thing, it's very hard to explain you. That's why I love the opportunity. When I have it. To go somewhere and then spend extra time in that country. In that city. To absorb that nuance of color and how color is treated in the day to day. Because it gives you a better understanding of color overall within its context and the meanings that it has in that situation versus in the one that I've grown up with. So, yeah, it's something I'm constantly kind of learning about more or getting more opportunity to do.

Judith van Vliet: Now, about what you just said, I think you clearly see in your work that combination of how you use pattern and color, and they always have very strong indicators to cultural inheritance origin. I'd like to say that is one of your signatures. Is it how you incorporate those by absorbing and you're going to a country, whether it's Mexico or whichever country, absorbing that and then bringing that back into what you are envisioning, it's something that.

Bethan Laura Wood: I find very rewarding. And I try in the best way to work with it within my work, in a respectful way, but in a way that is I'm not declaring now that I suddenly not understand the Mexican palace. I can never fully understand because it's not something I was born into and I breathe every day. But what I can share is the experience of going over into that space and then seeing how much that affects the way that I work with color and learning from it. And that's what that kind of way of being able to learn about color through those experiences, through those travels, I think, is what I like to share within my work. It can also be even much more subtle in terms of tonal things. When I first did a residency in Venice, which was one of the first countries I worked in outside of the UK, the pattern there is much more intense because of the Torah, so fantastic going on. But the palette is not full of strong colors in the same way of the vibrancy of a Mexico or India, but it's a wash of color. And then there's a softness of color that has a wetness to it to do with the Venice being half Underwood all the time. And this kind of brandy eating of color that's to do with the environment in that space. And so sometimes it's almost like only when I've gone to more than one place that I start to understand or appreciate better the difference between what's a palette or a color group that is connected with one place versus another. Because every time I go somewhere new, I have a new kind of roller desk to compare against. And so I remember when I went to Beirut, even though I went to Beirut for a very short window of time, there was something about there that completely reminded me of Venice, even though the pallets were not the same, but it was this type of pallet that was weathered, that Venice was weathered by water. So it had a cooler tone to it. And Beirut is a much hotter environment, and it's kind of brushed and blasted with the sand and with the sun. So this gradiating of color for me, tied those two cities together, even though the pallets were different. But it's one of those I don't know, sometimes I don't know what I'm going to come across. And so I really enjoyed how much this palette coming from Beirut, even from just a few days being there, then affected my work because I think I had the context of seeing it after experienced the palate in Venice and then other things like the Mexico palate is something that you can see. All my work pretty much after that visit was fundamentally changed because once you've got all the colors out of the box, it's like, why do I have to put them back now? So, yeah, it gives me a lot of joy to work with color and to play with color. And so it's definitely something that is a common thread within my work, for sure.

Judith van Vliet: We both have a very strong passion for Mexico. I remember the first time I went and I try to go back every year, and it's just as soon as I land. And it's the food, it's the sound, the people, it's the color, it's the music, it's everything. I just feel alive for me, it just does something to me. But I just had to ask you, what's your favorite place in Mexico to go for color inspiration.

Bethan Laura Wood: It's a tricky one in the sense that there's a lot of Mexico I haven't explored yet. So I'd like to say on one hand, like somewhere I've never been, because that will be the most inspiring next, if you get what I mean. One of the things that I've continually gone back to again and again on over several projects is the new Basilica of the lady of Guadalupe, which is a building on the outskirts of Mexico City, which you kind of go past on the way to the pyramids. And I think that that has a soft spot for me in two ways. One, because I love a good bit of brutalism. And this is like full on.

Judith van Vliet: It is, yeah.

Bethan Laura Wood: And I love quite often in brutalist buildings, in buildings that have this very kind of for some, you would see as being kind of quite aggressive and hardline form, normally as a balance to that. They normally always are really brave of color, especially within light glass elements. So quite often in those types of buildings, the counterbalance to this type of surface and chunky formations and stuff is this like, beautiful conversation then with translucent colors. And so the Basilica has this in spades. And if you've never been to the Basilica, if you imagine, like, if a 1970s kind of spaceship landed, it's this massive kind of round, disc shape. And then all the way around are these amazing stained glass windows that are three dimensionally informed. They're made from cast glass bot blocks that in themselves point out and point in in reference to the prehistorian Hispanic graphics and patterns of Mexican culture. And I just love this building and I love the windows. And I love how much the color changes when you're inside and when you're outside versus color coming through, color going on the glass. I love how much the form and the pattern moves and change as you move around the building because of this kind of faceted, three dimensional elements of the windows. So I think there's that side of it that I love so much. And then it's also a favorite because it's one of those things that I had no idea existed. And I was only got to experience it by chance, because on that day, my friend who's from Mexico decided that he didn't want to join me that day because I was going to the pyramids. And it's a bit like when you live in London, there are certain places that you've been to a billion times. He was like, you know what? I've done the pyramid. So I went with a lovely driver from the hotel that was hosting me as part of the residency. And it was this gentleman that suggested that I may want to go to the Silica, because for him, it's a very important building. Also, from a religious point of view, for him, it's a really important part of his culture. And I think that beauty of when somebody shares with you something that's really emotionally important to them or suggest something that he really wanted me to go I'm not sure he quite understood why I didn't spend the whole time looking at the actual shroud of the lady of Guadalupe and that I was more rotating around the windows. But I just love that he shared that with me. And by having that conversation with somebody, by going physically somewhere and not relying on what Google Image or the way we digest color and things sometimes. Now, it's amazing that we have the Internet. That gives us a lot of access, but it can also allow you to almost miss some of the most obvious things or going to another layer because it's always a collection of images from someone else rather than first hand. So for me, the other reason why I love the new Basilica of the lady of Guadalupe so much is that it was this experience that I wouldn't have had had had I not been there and taken on a suggestion from somebody else.

Judith van Vliet: It's good that your friend didn't want to come. I mean, you come across the best places if you're with locals. Obviously, either you're with locals or you're lost. When you get lost, that's also perfect. You always find the best places that inspire you and come across people that show you the way around. Happened to me in Magnets a few times. Obviously, I got lost in the Medina. And then you come to the most amazing places because one of the other places, Maya, is just the color of wahala for me. Maybe not like Mexico, but obviously also Marrakesh. It's very fascinating color wise when we look at sustainable products. Obviously, I don't think we can get around that today. Just today, looking on the internet that Patagonia has given back its entire company to planet Earth, that's a little bit the statement that they made today. I mean, sustainability is all around, we can't ignore it. Design processes are also key today, I think. There's so much going on, it's hard to understand, however, what is truly sustainable and what's not. How do you personally look at that theme and how do you apply, let's say, your rules in the field to your work?

Bethan Laura Wood: I think it's a difficult one to have like a blanket opinion or say that blanketly, it should only ever be one way or another. I've always been interested in not necessarily thinking that we can ignore all the layers of the city and industrialization that we have. But I quite often make work that looks at those layers and repurposing those materials, or opening up a dialogue between me and the audience or the public back into understanding or seeing the complexity within materials that we either see as being very throw away when they're really not, because they're a material that doesn't degrade, like plastic or re. Looking at materials like laminates, for example, which is the material I've worked with many, many times, which quite often it has ways of being more high brow and low brow, but its default is always seen as a second rate material to the true raw stone or hardwood. But actually it's a material that needs a huge amount of industrialized kind of preset setting to exist and then it can only be made if it's made in larger volumes. And so when you get left with this kind of leftovers or these sheets, that then at some point when they're no longer being made, because a lot of laminate, new colourways, new patterns come out every four years, then when something discontinued in a way just as rare as the rare wood because it can only exist within this larger system of production. So I like quite often to make work that explores or plays with, reassessing these materials so that we can start to engage in having a different conversation with things that we are up to. Even when I was studying, I studied in Brighton, which is a university that's very connected with looking at the environmental setups of work. But I think at that time, when I was studying, it was kind of more focused on recycled materials or using organic materials. And for me, I was always interested. We've got so many layers already of these materials that are kind of around. So can I make work that works with these and then creates a different connection with them or makes us reassess how we treat certain materials and what context the material needs to be for us to give it more respect or not throw it away or these kinds of things? So I think, though I don't always work with recycled materials, I do quite often make work that is in dialogue with this understanding that we can no longer kind of produce within an aspiration where mass is best. And I think we're all trying to find the new balance over making enough things accessible for people that it doesn't become only certain people are allowed certain things, which I also don't think is correct, but it's changing our relationship to materials and changing our relationship to consuming that I think, is one of the things that I make work more in relation to. But there's also. Speaking of Mexico. There's amazing designers like Fernando Laposse. Who is a good friend of mine. Who has really been making beautiful work reassessing or finding new outlets for traditional materials and fibers that kind of lost their place to plastics and nylon fishing nets. And now reworking with communities that still have the knowledge of how to process these materials and finding new systems and new setups for those to have a stable existence.

Judith van Vliet: So also when you work with recycled materials, and then when you look at color, that brings along a whole different color waste, unless you're applying color again to something that is recycled, which is not always a great sustainable option, because again, you're mixing something in that it's not supposed to be there. Right. Is that something that also fascinates you to work with as well? Version materials that are colored or that you apply color to and at the same time work with nuances that technically come along naturally? Right? Because if you work with recycled materials, you take the color technically for granted of the given material?

Bethan Laura Wood: Yes and no. It depends on the recycled material. Some materials can be recycled in a way where the color is stripped or the only recyclable material, like you can see right now with a lot of plastic bottles. There's been a move for a lot of brands that previously would use a colored bottle or a white bottle or a bottle with pigmentation in it to push them to move away from using that bottle because those pre colored plastic then doesn't recycle in the same way as a transparent plastic. We can recycle within the chain. And then obviously there's a type or an aesthetic that's connected with a kind of splatter aesthetic which is more easily achievable with recycled materials when you mix whatever detritus together of plastics and you get this kind of speckles. Which I like the look of. But it comes with a very particular kind of color palette that comes from the colors that are from industry at that time or in general colors of the industry. And so it kind of always can kind of be in and out of fashion, let's say. Or it comes with a strong color identity. So it can be more complicated to find a way for that to have a second life where it's previous life doesn't overdominate or you rely on that previous life too much for what the end product is, if you get what I mean. I think new products being made from recycling, you also need to work as products in themselves regardless of that they're recycled. So I think it's a fine balance, but it's interesting to be able to play with existing palettes and colors and find new ways of viewing them. I suppose the marketary work I do with the laminate plays this a little bit because I mix laminates that didn't exist at the same time as with each other and it makes a different kind of conversation by a color. And the colors that the palettes I'm playing with are kind of fixed within what sheets existed at the time. I'm doing the market tree or where I've got hold of like dead stock of sheets. So, yeah, there's a part of that interplay that's not controlled by me, but that's the story of that material in the same way that natural materials have a particular pigment or coloration to them that comes to play in it. So yeah, I'm not sure if that.

Judith van Vliet: Answers the question, but no, it totally does. Obviously I visited Milani because I'm based in Milan, Italy, of course. And I saw your new collection that you did for Nino Far. Very inspiring. I loved it. What inspired you for that particular collection that you did for Newfound?

Bethan Laura Wood: So the show, A Summer Room, that was the show I had this year is from a family or a project that I started the previous year with a solo show called Ornate. So it's a continuation of the ornate universe and in particular The Summer Room focused on the veneer experimentations with veneer I've been doing with a company called Alpha. So the furniture in the summer room, the desk that was in the summer room and the Ornate show previously I had also a tall cabinet, and we had the small cabinet, actually, in the bedroom of the summer room. These are all part of a collection that I call Mezen, and they are working with a mid process bespoke veneer that normally you wouldn't see from Alpi, because these kind of large color vistas happened in the middle of making a sheet that's for commercial sales. So if you imagine. Regardless of whether it's full of color or a very minimal sheet. When company that makes a sheet material that you normally buy multiples of to either cover loads of kitchen cupboards or walls or furniture. There has to be a consistency of color within those sheets so that when they have a picture of the sheet and you buy a sheet or you buy ten sheets. You know what you're going to get. And you can interblan those sheets together. So within the process of making these amazing kind of faux wood veneers that they make, it's always a real wood. But it's the way in which alpi will find ways to imitate natural grain patterns and this kind of thing to get to a sheet that both has a naturalness about it, but also a repeatability, there's a point in the middle where they hit these kind of big color vistas. And so normally, these aren't commercially available because each sheet is different. It's like you would need to photograph 250 sheets for somebody to pick one sheet. And then if you put the sheet that's come before the one after, one might be blue dominant and one might be green dominant, let's say, in the sheets that I was working with. So you can't blend them in the same way. But for what I was working on, which was limited edition or one off pieces, which is the universe, I work with my gallery in a weird way, those sheets that come from mass production at that point in their production suit my context. And so that's why I was able to then make these furnitures that celebrated these vistas within the context of their own industry aren't usable, but they don't work with the system that's set up, if that makes sense. I really love playing with this in those pieces, and that's why you could.

Judith van Vliet: See that that was made it so different. And so it gave a completely different feel to it because it feels like it's random. And obviously it's not random because you haven't picked it completely random. I think it was definitely one of my favorite parts. And obviously one of your big teachers was there, too, Martino Gamper, of course.

Bethan Laura Wood: Yes. He had a beautiful show in the main space of the depot below me. He was also a master of color and corners. He likes a good corner. Yeah.

Judith van Vliet: It was amazing to see the both of you with so many other great other designers at Nilufar. And I know he's still a very dear designed companion of you. And I know that he was a big part of also your journey and your career path. Now I would imagine that getting where you are hasn't completely been without any struggles. I mean, I imagine success didn't just come along immediately working with galleries, procedures, as needle far, for example, brands that are global. Can you talk a little bit about that, about how you'll start and how where you are now?

Bethan Laura Wood: I always knew that I wanted to do something within the creative field from a young age, but it took me time to work out which let's say which discipline I wanted to focus in. And then on my BA, I already was experimenting with a little bit with pattern, but I more was not working on making my own patterns, but using patterns that had a condensation or a reference already within a heritage. I made stain cups that stained through use. So I think at the time it was like the ipod, this is going to show my age was like a big thing. But it was these white rectangles that now needed to be kept in the cover of a cover of a cover to keep from getting scratched or marked. And I just found out really bizarre that something that's designed to be like technically a very functional object somehow because of its form and its shape and then the kind of cult like nature of this kind of new world of technology meant that it now came to so precious that we needed to have special covers for them. And so I then decided I made work, that you got more from it by using it, rather than less from it by using it, because with all of these objects, it kind of seemed the minute you start using it, you were devaluing it. And that's kind of a bit counterproductive for what an object for people is meant to be. So I made these tea cups that stained with use. The more you drink from them, depending on what tea you would drink, the patination would color in and different patterns would be revealed. So I was working a little bit within the context of some of the stuff I do now, but I think I still was a bit unsure over how to combine my personal interest in color with my work and where color was needed in my work versus where I just like color. I think finding the nuance of the balance within that took me quite a bit of time. And definitely my education at the Royal College of Art and having Jegen Bay and Martino Gamper kind of making me realize that it was very silly to not use this thing that I seem to be good at. Which is putting together colors or having a level for pattern color that maybe was a higher tolerance than most people and that I should use that in my work rather than be worried about putting it there. So I. Think that's kind of where I started to find a bit more or feel more confident in how to create a particular language. But all through that time, from my BA and through into my ma and stuff, I was always doing a mix of, like, working in a bar for money and then doing an exchange with a glass artist or producing a jewelry range that I could make from my kitchen table. So, for example, with the teacups that I graduated with, I did a work exchange with the wonderful glass artist Max jackard. So I'd work for him for two days to get a day back in his workshop, where I could make my teacups so I could make them for sale, and so I would find ways to be able to carry on producing work or a design work that would suit my situation or my setup. And when I first moved to East London, there was a large dress up scene and a lot of dancing and a lot of color. So it made a lot of sense then to make objects that I could wear out in this way. So that's why I did this kind of colorful wooden jewelry that led me to stock stores in London with the jewelry, it rolled from there, I was always trying to find a way to start to make work in a commercial way that suited a smaller context. And then from graduating from the RCA, I was lucky to have the opportunity of a couple of residencies back to back. Doing residencies or applying to do residencies when I graduated was one way that I knew I could then continue developing some of the languages, all the things I was interested in that I knew needed to be within a particular context or a particular price point to make viable. So when I was invited to do the residency for the Design Museum of London, I decided to spend all the budget and all my fees to make the work, because I wasn't sure if I was going to get another opportunity to be able to make work that needed such intense kind of marketing and crazy skills. And then also, when you have the backing of a residency or something like that, supported by a museum, like this Design Museum, it can make it easier for you to write to companies. During my masters, I wrote to Abbott Laminate. So ALP does the Woodvener, who I'm working with at the moment. Abbott Laminati is a laminate company that I really wanted to work with because they design the laminates from the socks of Memphis all the way to, I think, the laminates that were going into KFC's at the time. So it's like the highs and lows of one materials output and having those kind of being able to write to them and say, I'm studying at the Royal College of Art, or, I'm doing this residency for the design, also allow me to kind of have that foot in the door to try and get materials. And so I suppose I built up bit by bit in those ways, trying to just take what opportunities kind of came around and then make the most of them or go for broke with them, as I did with the Design Museum. So then when I think the next year the Royal College of Art has decided to offer some spaces to people that had graduated if they wanted to show with the school again. During Celine the Fair in Milan, I was like, there's no way I can afford to take a massive cabinet. And some of these big pieces I've done independently. So I was like, hell yeah, I'm coming. And so that opportunity allowed me to have these bigger pieces of furniture in Milan and then I had some smaller furniture, smaller objects, had done in another residency, in another show. So then when I met the gallery, Nina Yasha through Martino, I was able to be like, yes, you like these small pieces? I also have these pieces over here. So I think it's always a mix between of course I've been very lucky with certain opportunities that have come up, but it's also about going full on with an opportunity or looking at what something has to offer and then working out what's the best thing you can do to use that to get to the next step of what you want to do. And I suppose that's how I kind of built up to that point where then I started working with the Nilufar gallery super collaboration.

Judith van Vliet: I can't wait to see what you're up for for next Milan Design Week. But now it's London design festival.

Bethan Laura Wood: It is. I figure that you're showing yes, some years with the London Design Festival I show less because I do span work that either more sits within the freeze week, which is normally connected with art, or the limited edition works. And then other years, like this year, I have works in both camps. So during the Design Week this year I'm launching table wear with the wonderful company called 1882. I'm launching a rug collection with a company called Christopher Far. I'm showcasing the hand knotted carpets I made with CC Tapis, which we launched during Salone. We're going to show them for the first time in London. I'm lending my artwork to Casino for the launch of a shelving system that they have called Ghost, which allows you to have bespoke covering on the back panels of this selling system. Because I previously have made vases for Cassina and I'm very proud to be part of the Cassina family. It was very lovely that they wanted to invite me to use my artwork in collaboration with the launch of this product. So I will be there to give a talk and yeah, there's probably other things that now I'm going to panic that I've forgotten, but yeah, I have a few things going on, and it's really nice to get them out. Some things we've we've been nibbling away at and like with a lot of industries, coded and other things have made it a little slower to get things going. But I kind of think that things should take the time they need to develop correctly. So, yeah, I'm very excited by the pieces that I'm launching.

Judith van Vliet: It sounds like you're back on track and you're doing stuff at a rather high pace also, because I was obviously not in April. It was in June. London Design Festival. Obviously. But I imagine that's not where you stop. So what do you dream of, Bethan? What would be like a dream come true?

Bethan Laura Wood: Well, in a way, I'm living the dream. My dream has always been to be able to do what I love and have enough freedom within what I'm doing that I can do so many different types of projects. It's been a dream to fit with the wonderful. So Amesist Helen, who I work with through 1882, who's the master of the slip lining technique. And this is a dream to sit with somebody who has this amazing skill, and then you find a language or you tweak a palette and a linework, and suddenly then you make something that can only really work because of their skill and your conversation. And I love doing stuff like this. I have also been excited by starting to do some larger scale projects. Just before Covet, I was doing quite a few installations and larger scale kind of spaces with Perry Joe as part of the HyperNature project that I did for them. So I find it very rewarding to go from this kind of small scale to big scale. So I would like to carry on doing a variety of works that sit in different industries. I love walking cities and walking spaces, and I take a lot of color and pattern references from what I call public pattern or public places. So to make a public space, to make an intervention within something like that would be a really lovely thing to get to do at some point in a permanent way. So that's on my.

Judith van Vliet: List, your bucket list for the future on what to design and who to design for, of course. Sounds like an amazing plan. I see that you all, well, as always, colorfully dressed and all dressed up because you have another event coming up right now, this evening, right?

Bethan Laura Wood: Yes. So this evening I am part of a panel conversation about the wonderful world of Max Cendenning, who is not a very well known designer and architect, but was really a big part of the kind of swinging 60s movement and the space age aesthetic from the on. And sadly, he passed in 2020. But his partner, Ralph, who is also an amazing artist, set designer, craftsman, knowledgeable, man of drawing, and worked in partnership with Max for most of his works were this conversational dialogue between the two. So it was a real pleasure for me to be invited to get to know his world a little bit more. And I visited Ralph's and Max's home a few weeks ago and it set all my eyeball tingling, fuzzy, happy worlds alike, because it was an amazing universe of psychedelic furniture and space age lines mixed with Ralph's interpretation of William Morris and William de Morgan and A, for this kind of aesthetic movement that has a very British sensibility to it. Or there was a big celebration within this period of styles of wallpaper and interiors and things. So for me, this was like an amazing feast for the eye. And I'm still digesting how much that's going to influence my next work and makes me want to be braver than just painting the walls in my house. Different colors. I need to paint them with different patterns in response to Ralph's amazing wall art. So it's a big pleasure to be invited to be part of this talk and to learn more about Max, because I had seen one of his chairs at a vintage fair, but it was, like, sold, I think, already the minute the second the door had opened, you know what I mean? But it was almost like it gave me this taster of somebody whose work I didn't know. But there was something that was so familiar about the aesthetic, and that's because he was so much part of this movement in design within London specifically. So I find that so exciting when you get to, like, learn something new, it's all about getting to learn something new. And yes, so that's the event that I'm going to be part of this evening. And I suggest you and your listeners check him out, but also check out I think there's a few articles that you can find where there's photographs of their home. And for me, it's this combination of Max's kind of space age furniture with this other crazy interior aesthetic that just, like, hits my happy bone.

Judith van Vliet: Looking at an interview, a video interview of you and your house, how you introduce your house. You are an amazing collector. I mean, your house looks like a museum and it's just so that hit my happy place.

Bethan Laura Wood: Looking good.

Judith van Vliet: So it's funny to hear that you've been to a place that again, and this is indeed that's the big question. Where do you get inspiration? You never know. It can be in somebody's house. It can be going to a festival, it can be going to, obviously, London Design festival, but you never know when it's going to hit you right, that inspiration.

Bethan Laura Wood: Well, I think it's about always being open, like having your eyes open, literally, but also metaphorically, it's being open all the time to things that come about or that you get an opportunity for and then digesting it and taking from it. And sometimes you visit somewhere and it may not be your aesthetic or your style or your taste in color, but it's always interesting to understand and learn what different combinations somebody else sees together. And I suppose sometimes for me, especially in relation to color, it's almost like the colors that I have an aversion to the most, I end up liking or using the most within combination with others because I'm trying to train myself to understand what is it that that's giving me this reaction about. For example, I love the work of Virgin Pot and he has a great combination of color, but it's different to the colors I would put together. And I don't understand it, but I love it. And I love it more because it's like, not how I would put stuff together. So I find that fascinating to like, friction, right? Yeah. It's just that combination of, like, the colors that he would defaultly or naturally get torns put together are different to mine. And I find that looking in a mirror can be nice for a little bit, but at some point it gets very boring. So I think it's so much more exciting to look into other people's worlds and be confronted by other people's worlds and have a dialogue with them and make your own interpretation from them and back and forth. I'm not sure where I went off on to get to this part of the conversation, but there we go. Check out Virgin Park. Is amazing.

Judith van Vliet: It is. But I'm sure people are following you. No worries. I'm following the conversation completely, entirely. But yes, I would just want to thank you because this has been definitely the highlight of my week. Being able to interview you are a great inspiration and I wish you the best of luck at London Design Festival.

Bethan Laura Wood: Thank you very much.

Judith van Vliet: Thank you for being part on the podcast.

Bethan Laura Wood: No worries. Lovely to speak to you. Have a great rest of your day.

Judith van Vliet: I hope you all enjoyed my conversation with Bethan. If you did, please go to Spotify subscribe and rate the show. You may also do that on Apple podcasts. The next episode is going to be with Ellen Mirck and she is a fashion stylist, and she's going to talk all about how color influences her processes in a fashion. And that podcast is going to be launched on October 18. So see you back then and have a great day.