This is just one example of the collaborative energy that our Brighton studio building contained and the quirky and magical encounters it spawned.

Three months before leaving our beloved New England House, fellow artists and studio neighbours Frankie and Mary invited me and a few others to an early morning drawing session in the Level 5 Ladies Loos. and Sara facilitated other artists to draw via Zoom. Frankie and Mary modelled for us accompanied by live music from harpist Sekinue. It had to be early to capture the fleeting moment when the mesmerising aquatic light slants in through the windows to create an enchanted chamber.

It’s a private semipublic space in New England House that many are unaware of or overlook; a space that becomes visionary in the early morning light that softens the walls and submerges us in colours that range through aqua, eau de nil, pistachio, duck egg blue & Tiffany turquoise. Level 5 is where my studio was, so this was my “local” Loo for 12 years. 

New England House: a functional Brutalist building housing so many stories. As we drew the sea nymphs Frankie and Mary in the soft dreamy light, we were surrounded by photos they had taken earlier and attached to the walls along with a collage of self portraits taken by me and other “visitors” to the Loos.

Afterwards we created an impromptu installation of our work and some of my drawings are featured here. 

“The nymphs are departed” wrote T.S. Eliot in “The Wasteland”.

Maybe. 

But our traces still linger there and in our memories.

(Images & Credits: photos & works on paper Rea Stavropoulos; Loo Break installation Mary Martin, Francesca Cluney & Fior Anderson)