Port Isaac People: Artist Katie Childs

“When I paint the rooftops of Port Isaac, I see a jigsaw of all of the people I know and their stories.”

Port Isaac artist Katie Childs’ work is synonymous with our village, her works adorn the walls or cover the windows of many cottages and properties, and you’ll find several on the walls of our booking office. Her gallery and studio, Cliffside Gallery is just along the road in sight of us at number 2 The Terrace with far reaching views out over Port Isaac Bay to Tintagel Head, and is a must visit whilst you are in the village. The gallery has been a fixture in the village for over 25 years, as has been Katie on the clifftops and vantage points around the village and the surrounding coast where she can often be found with her oil sticks and paints, or walking her dog (this summer, her new puppy will also be in tow).

Katie grew up in Port Isaac, in the historic heart of the village on Church Hill. She knows the fabric of this community and its what she sees when she paints it and revisits scenes and angles year after year, often painting the views from the gardens of friends or clients. This is reflected in the names of some of her works, such as a classic “From Annabel’s Garden” named for the mother of one of he childhood friends whose view was immortalized in Katie’s oils.

We crossed the road to Cliffside Gallery to take some photos of Katie as she works on a new set of originals to illustrate a friend’s upcoming children’s book, and to talk with her about her unique and studied view of our beautiful village.

How did you come to develop your art practice here in Port Isaac?

My parents bought our family home in Port Isaac long before I was born, and they moved here to live when I was about eight or nine. My parents ran a boarding school, so home life was always surrounded by hundreds of other children, whereas when we came to Port Isaac it was just for us, just for family. So when my parents moved here and I started school here it was like coming home. I already had all my friends here, and that’s remained the same ever since.

When I finished art school I came back to Port Isaac and was painting and exhibiting, already showing my work in quite a few places and selling my work, and I needed a studio. I had a couple of different studios around the village and in several other different places. Eventually I found what’s now Cliffside Gallery, on top of the hill. It was empty and I rented it for a year as a studio and I had about two or three pictures on the wall, but over time that changed and eventually the walls became covered in paintings and I’ve been demoted to painting in the corner. At the end of that year I bought the place, and suddenly 27 years have rolled by and I’m still here, and it’s great. It’s nice being at the slightly quieter end of the village so I can work and get things done, and of course the light is amazing.

You studied textiles at university, and now many of your artworks are printed onto textiles and feature in people’s homes as blinds, cushions and lampshades. How did you come to blend the mediums that you work with in this way?

Painting for me has always been about colour and texture. I think that I probably have a really heightened sense of colour, so as well as much as painting texture and form, I basically paint colour. Textiles works brilliantly with that, but there’s only so much I can physically paint. I don’t do anything in a hurry. Being able to print one-off pieces, made to measure basically, as blinds and cushions, just allows me to do other things with my work without going into mass production. I like to think that we can do everything made to measure, without doing the mug or the keyring or other sorts of souvenirs. Because I’m also limited by wall space in here I’ve got to be really careful what I do produce, and I like to keep it a little more bespoke rather than mass produced. I don’t supply anybody else, I just sell everything from our front door and online. It allows me to keep things slightly more individual rather than any sort of mass production which just doesn’t interest me. I think I would probably lose my freshness and my approach to my practice if I went down that route, so I just keep it personal. I know where each piece goes. I meet people at the front door and I know that they’re taking that piece home and that interests me far more than doing anything on a bigger scale.

You can often be found on the cliff tops painting en plein-air, and your gallery on The Terrace in Port Isaac is also a working studio. What is your process for creating your pieces, and does it depend upon the piece, the location, weather and so on?

My painting process is really determined by the light and the tide. I do a lot of work to commission so if I’m painting somebody’s favourite view or a certain time of the year that determines where I am and what I’m doing. I’m constantly out on the cliffs; if I’m not out painting then I’m out walking the dogs, and taking it all in, looking at the wildflowers, looking at compositions, and constantly returning. I do the same walk over and over again, just to wait for the best time to be able to go out there and paint it. So I’m always, if not consciously, taking in inspiration, looking, and recording with my sketchbook and camera, gauging the best time of the year to paint a certain view.

One of the most important things is just to sit and take it in. I take a lot of time observing and soaking it all up. I think that’s important in life, but I 100% think that’s important for being creative or painting. I certainly think that’s what I try to put into all my pictures, and I hope that comes across. I love paintings that you can sit and look at and constantly see something different in it. If something’s going to live on your wall it’s going to be there for a long time and I love the fact that if you look at something and every time you might see something that you’ve not seen before. There’s a lot of work that’s quite simple, and that’s great. There’s no right or wrong to anything. You like something or you don’t. But I find that with my work, the Devil’s in the detail. I said earlier that I don’t do things in a hurry but that’s mainly because I put so much detail in things, and I like to try to get things right. Particularly if I’m painting cottages in the village because, inevitably, I could paint 400 cottages in a piece and then somebody would come along and say “well, you missed mine off,” so I try to get as much down as possible. A lot of that is because I sit and look, and I take it in, and then I draw it.

Do you have a favourite view of Port Isaac? And is it the same as your favourite view to paint from?

We all have places that we love, and nooks and crannies that maybe not everybody goes to. A lot of people come down on holiday, maybe at the same time every year, so maybe to them it’s when the gorse is in flower and the cliffs are covered in bright yellow in March that sums up everything about Cornwall to them. For other people it’s when the cliffs are completely pink in May and June. To me, it’s when the wildflowers are out and you get those perfect colour combinations that you just can’t beat. It’s trying to capture that colour that really interests me.

If I can, I try to paint out and about. I certainly try to start every piece out en plein air. I try to do a lot of work over the late spring and early summer and start a lot of paintings that will perhaps keep me going throughout the winter. I don’t like to work from photos but I do take a lot of pictures for reference for light and tide and the detail, because quite honestly it’s not practical to be sitting out on the edge of the cliff painting all day, every day, much as I’d love that.

I do finish a lot of work back in the studio. The beauty of the gallery is that, although it’s cold because it faces north, the quality of the light in there is phenomenal. I have a studio at home as well and I love painting there in the evenings, particularly over the winter. Some days painting is the last thing to get done because running every aspect of any business takes a fair bit of time – that and a good dollop of procrastination as well. So certainly in the winter I paint a lot in the early evenings at home. I find that early evening light quite inspirational and probably a bit of a kick up the bum to get something done before the end of the day.

Over the years you have revisited iconic views of the village, and painted them in different seasons or from slightly different locations and angles. You must have developed an intricate familiarity with the way the village looks. What are the things that you notice most when you revisit those familiar views?

Painting views of Port Isaac just never gets old. There’s always something new to be seen. My absolute favourite is painting from other people’s gardens. That little bit of them, and their little bit of the view that makes up the bigger picture… it’s like putting a jigsaw together where you’re looking at a view that you know so well but through somebody else’s eyes. And from their garden it’s probably somewhere that not everybody has access to. It’s like when you walk through the back lanes and you get these beautiful views down through the cottages and the rooftops. Our garden at my family home is built up into the cliff, up behind the house, and it’s absolutely phenomenal. My whole aspect growing up was looking from one side of the valley right across the whole village. You can see absolutely everything. The only issue is that because we’re on one side of the valley and can see everyone, everyone can look back and see us! It just meant that growing up, my whole take on the village was looking out at all the cottages and across the rooftops and knowing who lived behind each door, and piecing together the whole village. That fascinates me. Painting from our garden has, throughout my life, been my favourite place. But painting from other people’s gardens is something that I love so much.

That’s one of the things that I love when I paint Port Isaac. You see lots of people painting all sorts of different things and lots of people doing a similar thing, which is great, but I think for me, certainly when I paint, I’m not just painting a flat picture: I’m painting where so-and-so lives or so-and-so’s garden, and their house that I half grew up in because I used to go round there all the time. So I’m piecing together all of those pieces of the jigsaw that make up the bigger picture. Too me I’m looking at it as a whole. There’s nothing more annoying than when somebody paints their front door a different colour and it messes up your picture, but it’s all those little intricacies of people’s lives that I am hoping to piece together.

How do you keep things interesting for yourself as an artist?

I think keeping things interesting is just seeing things with fresh eyes. I’ve got hundreds of places stored away in my memory of views that I want to paint . I love painting things at different times of year because the light and the foliage is so different. One of the reasons why I have a lot of flowers in my paintings is because I use pastels, so often I’ll sit on the floor when I’m painting which means that all of the flora and foliage is at eye level and that’s why there’s often quite a lot of flowers at the front of my pictures.

I also do a lot of commission work. That’s when people really like my style and my paintings, but perhaps want their favourite view or their house painted – something that really means something to them. That’s great because I can really try to incorporate as many of the elements that mean something to that person in whilst I’m painting. It’s such a lovely way to have that creative freedom to produce something for somebody and knowing all those things to include whilst you’re doing it.

What is your daily routine or rhythm during the summer months?

My daily rhythm and routine, no matter what time of the year, starts by getting up at first light and getting straight out onto the cliffs with the dogs. It’s that bonus little part of the day, before the actual day begins, when everything is waking up and you have the whole world to yourself. Simon and I go out and together we can set the routine of what we’re going to do and who’s doing what. We run the business between us, so it’s a time when we can work out the who, what, where, when, plus just take it all in. It’s not quite so nice when it’s pouring down in the winter but it’s still vital to get out and I always think that no matter happens with the rest of the day and how much you’re stuck inside, you’ve done that for you and the rest of the day can do whatever it does.

Usually the rest of the day goes to plan but come-what-may we are in the gallery every day. We just do it between the two of us. We’re open seven days a week. Often Simon will open up the gallery and I can get a few bits and bobs done in my studio at home and then we swap over. But it depends - when the weather’s good and it’s not so busy I can get out on the cliffs a bit more and he’s in the gallery, and then we take it in turns. He does all the framing so we’re like a little cottage industry between us. I make everything and then he finishes it off. It’s perfect!

What is your favourite season or time of year here, and why?

May/June, sort of late spring/early summer, I tend to be at my most prolific painting-wise, mainly because with a bit of luck the weather’s good (not so much this year), and it’s also not too busy in the gallery. It gives me a bit of time to be out and about, hopefully getting some work done and starting on commissions so that when it is a bit busier and I’ve got to be in the gallery I’ve got plenty of work that I can be getting on with there – killing two birds with one stone really and not just waiting for customers but working on paintings that I’ve already started outside.

Although saying that, I do love a bit of down time in the winter. Some people hate the winter but I just love it. I love having that non-urgency, a little bit of January when I can just take it a little more easy and everything I paint at that time of year just feels like a bonus rather than being up against so much pressure when it’s busy in the summer. I tend to get a lot of work done then which is really nice actually. When I say we’re going to be quiet and have a bit of time out I tend to paint quite a lot. Maybe because my mind-set is more that I’m painting for me so I can just get on with it and I’m a bit more inclined to do it at home. But spring and summer is definitely my favouurite time of year here.

Can we get a few of your Port Isaac favourites and recommendations please?

I tell everybody to walk: to just get out on the cliff path. It doesn’t matter how far you go. You can just go up Lobber, or carry on all the way to Port Quin. I always feel that with one shoulder to the land and one shoulder to the sea, it gives you such a sense of where you are in the world and being right on the edge of the cliff there. It’s a really good way to see the village and to put it all into perspective.

Walk all around the back streets. The best way to see anywhere and to take it all in is just to move slightly left of center, just a little bit away from where everybody else wants to be, and go and explore. Find it for yourself, and come across stuff. We’ve come across some amazing places all over the world, in Cornwall and elsewhere, just by walking and having a look around. In that respect you feel like you’re the first person discovering it. It’s definitely the best way to see somewhere.

If you had 24 hours, or a limited time, in Port Isaac and the weather was nice then an absolute must would be to walk to Port Quin. Do the loop back across the fields to Port Isaac and then get a cold pint and sit on the Platt in the evening and watch the world go by. You don’t get to do that every day – actually we do get the chance to do it every day and we try to do it as much as we can! But a lot of people don’t get to do that every day and they can hustle and bustle around and be so wrapped up in taking photos that they can forget to sit and look.

What does Port Isaac mean to you?

Port Isaac to me, means home. It pretty much means everything. You can go away, you can travel, you can do whatever, but inevitably you always come home and when home is somewhere like this and you realise that everything about you is shaped between those breakwaters and that incoming tide, nothing can ever change that. It means home and it means family and it never gets boring to paint.

And finally… your social media is awash with four and five leaf cloves. They’re said to bring luck but finding so many must require a lot of luck itself, and an artist’s observational eye. What’s the story behind you and all the lucky clovers?

I’m out walking on the cliffs with the dogs a lot and I just spot them! I’m not looking for them, I just see them. I’d never even seen one until about a year ago when my friend Tim showed me a few of his collection. I didn’t even think they were real! I don’t know if maybe he passed something on to me when he showed me his four-leaf clovers that had been pressed between bits of kitchen roll or shoved in old books, but now everywhere we go I seem to find them. If you find one in a place you’ll often find two or three so a lot of them, in fact most of them, are from my regular walking routes. There’s a couple of paths that I know that every time I walk down that path I will find a four, or a five, or even twice I’ve found a six-leaf clover. It seems to be a super power and maybe it’ll bring a bit of good luck, but as Simon says he thinks that the luck is in actually finding them.

You can visit Katie’s gallery and working artist’s studio, Cliffside Gallery, at number 2, The Terrace, Port Isaac. It’s in sight of our office on New Road and we’d be happy to point it out to you if you’re passing! You can see more of Katie’s work on her website or check out her four-leaf clover finds (and work) on her Instagram @cliffsidegallery.