On Moving from Painting to Making Objects

For a long time, my work lived mostly on walls.

Large canvases.
Sheets of paper.
Layers of colour built slowly over days or weeks.

Painting taught me how to see.
How to pay attention to texture, balance, and small shifts in tone.
How to trust intuition instead of plans.

But after years of working this way, something started to feel incomplete.

I loved making art.
I still do.

But I began craving something more tactile. Something closer to everyday life.

Not just things to look at.

Things to use.

Things to carry.

Things that could gather scratches and soften at the edges and quietly follow someone through their day.

Things you could hold.

Around that time, I noticed how often I reached for the same objects on my desk.

A pen I liked.
A small stack of notebooks.
Loose papers tucked into pockets.
Receipts and lists and half-finished thoughts.

Little fragments of life, everywhere.

I wanted a simple way to keep them together.

Nothing complicated. Nothing precious.

Just one sturdy, warm object that could travel with me and get better with time.

So I started experimenting with leather.

Cutting. Folding. Stitching. Taking pieces apart again.

Making one version, then another. Carrying them for weeks to see how they wore in. Adjusting the pockets. Changing the elastics. Paying attention to the details.

It felt different from painting, but also strangely similar.

Still slow.
Still guided by the hands.
Still about material and texture and feel.

Just smaller. Closer. More intimate.

That process eventually became The Companion.

A refillable leather notebook cover designed to hold the small, everyday pieces of life.

Notes, lists, sketches, receipts, ideas you don’t want to lose.

Nothing fancy.

Just something reliable. Something that ages well. Something that feels good to pick up every day.

This studio now lives somewhere between both worlds.

There are still paintings on the walls.

But on the table, there’s leather, thread, paper, and tools.

I like that balance.

Art for looking.
Objects for living with.

And this feels like the beginning of something new.

If you’re curious, you can see the notebook covers I’m making here → [Shop The Companion]

More notes from the studio soon.