Rose Wylie: Nonconformity, Ageing & the Beauty of an Unruly Home

25:44Rose Wylie:because they're being forced. They're being artificially preserved. They're too big. They don't have any smell. They don't die well. And then we have wildflowers. As you can see, I'm getting interested. We have wildflowers, which are small and completely beautiful, but they are regarded as insignificant. So my paintings are giving respect to wildflowers. and I've painted very, very dense paint on the background in the manner of Gerhard Richter, who is a big artist, big boy artist. That's the background upon which then I have painted a flower. Some people might say, oh, it's just a flower she's painted, but it's actually part of how I think and my attitude, my aesthetic.

26:41Yeah, really interesting. but some people may say something like a wildflower, it has quite a universal aesthetic beauty to it, albeit you're saying, you know, slightly neglected. Well, it has.

26:56Rose Wylie:They're absolutely universal. That's the thing. They grow everywhere. Yeah, exactly. So that's a flower, but you also paint things that are not necessarily universally aesthetically beautiful. I don't know. Lots of people, you paint things that you see in film, You paint moments from Quentin Tarantino movies. You paint sports stars like Cyril Williams. Yes, I know, but that's because Tarantino is such a... I don't know who his photographer is for his films. Yeah. But, I mean, they are such... They're good, or mostly they are. Most film directors have ace photographers to do their... I can't think of one that doesn't.

27:34Rose Wylie:But I don't know about aesthetic. The thing is, the image has to be interesting. Yeah. Exciting. I have to find the image, something about it. I suddenly think that's stunning. That's what I want to paint. What will it be? Well, it can be anything. That's why people say I don't seem to have a particular direction. I am the direction. The direction is an exciting image. Because you can see an exciting image anywhere, on the street, in the natural world, in a film, in a photograph, it doesn't matter. They're not just random things I paint. They're things that I think are visually exciting. So if you're going about your day and you come across something that you think is visually exciting or you're watching a film and you see something or you're watching a tennis player?

28:25Count it to me on the web.

28:27Rose Wylie:The web, you know, you can tool through the web. You can see a magnificent building. You can see a marvellous outfit, fashion outfit. You think, blimey, that's good. And I often make a drawing. You make a drawing of it. Yes. So I've got lots and lots of drawings. Sometimes at the time, sometimes a bit later, and sometimes a lot later, but sometimes they're at the time. And then I write study on the drawing usually because I can find an image from a 15th century manuscript or the Treyrich Book of Ours. I love it. It's medieval. And you can see something and you make a drawing of it. So I do that too.

29:07Rose Wylie:But I always acknowledge it because I think if you don't, then you have to acknowledge. So it's such a wide range of things that you're depicting. Yeah, it's the only thing that looks, it has to somehow arrest you. Yeah. It might be the way of the cat. I did a work once, it was called My Cat Looking Round. She used to always run in front. She took part and she ran in front. but she used to stop a little way in front and look round to see if you were following. And this was very charming of her and she was a very charming cat. So I did a drawing of Bunt looking round. You know, I do that and she had her head looking round.

29:50Well, this is obviously a particularly interesting discussion given that we're sitting in your studio upstairs. So let's talk about that because we're surrounded by a lot of stuff. so the floor is covered in bits of old newspaper looks like mainly the observer there's a lot of uh tins of paint it's partly empty there's some cardboard boxes there's i'd say a a layering of stuff and process and so i guess the obvious question for you rose is is how does it feed into your artistic process having all of this stuff here? Because for a lot of other people, they would say, well, I can't think clearly.

30:34Rose Wylie:A lot of people do think that. I think a lot of people think that, but also a lot of people think wonderful freedom. The thing is, I don't come into my studio and start putting things away. I come in and start painting. And everything that's here, I use newspaper when I'm painting. I use it a lot to wipe my brushes, because if you're painting into wet paint and you want a fresh colour into a different colour, which is wet, each time you put your brush into the paint and take it out, you have to wipe it. Otherwise, you get mixed colour, and the colour you want to be a particular colour becomes muddy or, you know, it becomes, you know, you lose it.

31:20Rose Wylie:So I'm using a lot of paper all the time. What I do as part of a kind of idea that you are free is that I don't then put it into a receptacle, I throw it. You get into a kind of way of working. You're not thinking, you're doing the painting, you don't care what... And it's release, it's a whole release. It's an example of someone who isn't governed by tidying up. And I think a lot of... The rest of the house isn't quite like that. I mean, the drawing room looks very reasonable. Yeah, yeah. People think, well, they look at a picture and they think, oh, well, she lives like that. Actually, I don't live like this.

32:06True. I was interested by that.

32:08Rose Wylie:It is interesting. But let me say again, I like contrast. Okay. And I like the difference. between a drawing room or kitchen or bathroom and where you work. This is completely authentic. I don't engineer this. It's not a mannerism. It happens. I've heard artists say that after a day's painting, they get backache because they have a concrete floor or they have a plank floor or lino, whatever they've got, brick, whatever it is. But this has a kind of soft. It's a kind of carpet, but I don't like carpets in studios. You can just keep piling it up, and when the paint gets... You can pick it up and put it in a sack, but it gets dragged because I have chairs which I pile my painting tins on when I'm working, and when I move the chair, I pull the chair along.

33:09Rose Wylie:Because I don't have a trolley on wheels, and people would say, why don't you get a trolley on wheels to do it? I've never thought like that. I always thought, use what you've got. So I drag the chair along, and that churns the paper up. So you can see it's, well, it's also, I don't know, it doesn't look precious. And so it, in fact, it encourages, it engenders work. It doesn't, you don't, for me it does. For some people it wouldn't. As you say, they'd find it would inhibit them. They wouldn't be able to work. But you're sort of saying that coming in here, it must be a state of mind that's entirely free because you can just discard something where you want to.

33:53Rose Wylie:As I said, there's no food in here. There's not old clothes in here. There's not old furniture in here. Any sort of books are books that I've used. They are tins of paint. It's all collateral of painting. It's all related to painting. It's not junk. It's a process. And can you describe how this house in general feeds into your creativity? How does it help you with that or hinder it sometimes? I think it does. Well, I used to worry about paint getting all over the carpet on the stairs. Actually, I don't like carpets on stairs, and one of the things I'd like to do is to get rid of the stairs and get a sort of wooden staircase which doesn't need a carpet.

34:42Rose Wylie:But the carpet has started to get quite a lot of paint on it because I've got bothered less. because my husband thought that I should keep the paint in here. He thought it was not a good idea to get paint all over the house. So I used to change my shoes. I used to wear different shoes in here. But I've given that up. I just wear the same shoes. So I walk in paint and I go out to answer the phone or whatever I did to look at an image on the computer because I often photograph work in progress. So I go in and out of the computer here, and I don't change my shoes here. The paint is starting to spread, but I think it's too late to bother about it.

35:29Rose Wylie:I used to bother, but I don't anymore. And the rest of the house, I said a moment I think ago to you that I like contrast. and I like contrast in painting which is why I often put paint on unprimed canvas and I don't paint all over the canvas I paint parts of the canvas because I like the contrast between the unpainted canvas and the heavily painted canvas contrast signifies life to me there's no contrast in death it's all the same I like contrast. But to come to your question, and the house, there's this contrast. The front of the house is very different from the garden side. Yeah. The light is different.

36:23Rose Wylie:The sound is different. The look is different. It's public on the front because the road, the house is bang on the road, bang on the pavement, which in itself for me has life. I always have the windows open. I like the noise of the traffic because I like... Traffic suggests to me that you're alive, you're not in hospital, you're not in a... Life is... You're in it, you're in life. And the noise of the traffic, people say, does it disturb you? And it doesn't. So I like the difference between the front of the house which has traffic and public people and movement. And the back of the house is completely private and is green, different colour, different light.

37:14Rose Wylie:It's covered in trees, has birds. And to go to the top of the garden, the sound of the road diminishes because there's a lot of tree. There's a dense tree. I was going to ask you about that because you've left it very wild, haven't you? I work with nature I don't control it and there's no junk in the garden there are no newspapers or discarded furniture or tins of paint it's all trees or plants and there are ones that have grown naturally and they grow they touch that's why the light is green because the light comes through the green of the leaves and makes the light that comes into that side of the house is a kind of green colour.

38:04Rose Wylie:Do you like that? I love that. On this side of the house, it's quite different. So the contrast, you asked me about how my attitudes and ideas in painting filter into the house. That's one of them, contrast. Hi, folks. A quick interlude to remind you that alongside the podcast, we also film house tours for our members over on Patreon. They're a chance to come with me inside the homes of some of my guests and to have a look at the rooms and the objects that we talk about in these conversations. Members get access to the full archive, so that's more than 20 long-form tours and there's new ones being added every week.

38:48So far we've gathered around the kitchen table with chefs like Margot Henderson and Anna Jones. we've loitered in gardens with Chris Packham and Dan Pearson there's been studio visits with artists like David Shrigley and Sue Webster and also lots of designers such as Max Rollett and Matilda Goad becoming a member also helps me make more episodes so if you enjoy the podcast and want to support it in some way joining over on Patreon would be hugely appreciated there's a link in the show notes or just search for Homing with Matt on the Patreon website or app. If you haven't come across Patreon, it's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.

39:31Thanks for listening and back to the conversation. Do you garden, in inverted commas? What do you do with the garden?

39:39Rose Wylie:Well, I leave it alone. I like to look at it. I walk around it every day several times. I like to look at it. I like to look at the field at the back. Suddenly there's an opening. Again, a contrast, because the garden is very... The trees meet over it like the top of a church or cathedral where you have ribs, structural ribs of the architecture. The same thing happens to a lesser degree in the garden where the trees all meet with ribs and the light filters through and then it suddenly opens up to the field. and I walk around it, which makes paths. You'll notice that there are trodden paths. So that's you just walking around it every day.

40:28Rose Wylie:They just appear because I walk around it. And there are a lot of little hazel trees growing and I love hazel leaves. And if you look in the house, there's a branch of them in the drawing room in a vase. There's a branch on the dining room table. The link. I love, I like leaves. So I bring the leaves into the, I grow the leaves outside and I bring them into the house. You bring them into the house and that, in fact, I don't ever cut a hedge, but it cuts. It's a natural, organic way of controlling too much growth. They don't grow over the path. I pick them all the time I put them in the drawing room, the dining room and the link between the kitchen which I like all it that probably answers your question it does, it's very in vogue I was thinking, you know, this rewilding movement that everyone's going through you're just doing it instinctively I think it fits my philosophy I am a green I love nature I like but I also like fast cars and computers.

41:44Rose Wylie:I love computers. I like cameras. You like fast cars? What kind of thing? I like fast cars. Well, I don't drive but I do like, I've nothing against, you know, I don't just want to go around on a bike with a horse. Not at all. Not for a minute. Not for a minute. You know, I like fast cars and I like, you know, I've said that I like things to be accessible and that picking hazel trees and bramble leaves is accessible and everyone can do it. But I also like space. So I wouldn't be averse to owning vast tracts of land. I'm not against that. So I like freedom. Having land around you suggests freedom because you don't have people imposing what they want on you, which I like.

42:35Rose Wylie:I don't like people imposing stuff on me. I don't like imposing stuff on other people. That's brilliant. How long have you been here now in this house? Nearly 60 years, 58 years. 58 years. I know because Henrietta's 60 and she was two when we came. So I'm not sure that I've done a podcast with someone that's lived in a house for that long before. That is a long, long time. so given that it holds a lot of memory this place doesn't it? to go back to what you said there's a table in the dining room which exactly fits the wall you can just open the door and you can get a six foot canvas art everything things work and I buy 72 inch rolls of canvas from Russell and Chapman and they just fit the table the sideboard table in the dining room and it's always there.

43:33Rose Wylie:It's not there now because I've finished the roll of canvas, but all the time it's there. So I have people come to dinner and the roll of canvas is on the sideboard. So it fits and I can get paintings out of the door. The house fits what I want to do. And how many children do you have? Three. Three, so three kids were all raised here. Henrietta, well, she's the youngest. Well, she was two when we came. Yes, Luke John was, I think, ten and he was there from ten onwards. Lizzie, yes, they're all familiar. They all know the house. Yeah. So I guess the reason I ask that is it's obviously had various lives, the house, hasn't it?

44:20Rose Wylie:We had a smashing time. Luke John was at Cambridge and endlessly we had undergraduates coming and staying and dinners and fights and irritations and drinking and boozing. So all of that was nice. How does it feel as a house to be in now you're on your own, which is obviously a different scenario? Well, it is, but nobody interrupts. I have no responsibility to get food for anyone. I used to feed people. I cooked and stuff like that. No, I can start working. Well, I can do something during the day maybe and then start working at seven in the evening and then go on until three in the night. It doesn't matter.

45:09Rose Wylie:So that's a nice freedom. I like that. And to get up late in the morning if I work. If I go to bed late at three, I'll get up late in the morning. Three. I do like freedom. Freedom, yeah. Do you like the solitude as well? I don't mind that. Yeah. That's why I wanted to talk to Sarah. I like talking to people about paintings. And she's a nice person to talk to. And she always does look and she responds. That's why I wanted to. Downstairs today. Sarah is your gallerist. Sarah, yes. I wanted to talk to her about the paintings downstairs because she's a nice audience to talk to. So are there some days where you're just here on your own for the full day or do you always have people coming to visit?

45:50How does it work?

45:51Rose Wylie:I have people visiting. people come I meet people in the evening I have a local some local friends after a time they all die off you know you don't know yet but when you've lived in a place for a long time the people you've known for a long time they either move to sheltered accommodation or they die or they can't move they can't drive anymore that sort of stuff happens which is not well I mean that's okay that happens I don't drive anyway can i ask you about recognition because in your case i think this is so interesting because your husband was a well-known artist he had some success while you were young and you it seemed to me tell me if i'm wrong had to put your painting on pause a bit because you had your children is that right i decided that if you got children and lizzie lizzie needed attention She's the middle one.

46:51Rose Wylie:She had difficulties of spatial learning. She can't manage by herself. So she took up a lot of my time. She had no sense of space. She couldn't manage. She couldn't count. She couldn't read. Luckily, she's been living in a related Rudolf Steiner community, and that's given me freedom to work. It's a good idea because as you get older, where you can't, in fact, start to look after someone who is needing help. So there's not that traumatic change where perhaps Lizzie's lived with me for years and years and years and then suddenly I can't manage and she then has to leave. That's very difficult. That's a very, very difficult and bad situation for the child who's got used to living with the parents.

47:42Rose Wylie:So that's been avoided. and she does live in a real standard community. So I was happy to look after the children and I think looking after children is important. And if you don't do that, children grow up feeling marginalised and they feel somehow that the parent has got a major attention somewhere else like in painting. And that, you know, it's not a good idea. So I decided that I would be a wife and mother, and Roy had more visibility than me. Then when Lizzie went away to live in a residential place, I just went into painting in a big way. I explained earlier on that I'm used to people, I'm used to fitting in with a situation rather than getting frustrated and angry about it.

48:39Rose Wylie:So then I started to paint. From your childhood, yeah. But painting then wasn't particularly easy because I had a gap and so it wasn't easy at all. People expect you to just come out of art school. But didn't you go to the Royal College in your 40s? Yes, I did. Yeah. So you went to the Royal College and then was that the point at which you gave it a concert to go? After that I started painting all the time, yes. Okay. But it seems to me that you've really found a lot more public awareness in your sort of 70s onwards, right? Yes. I mean, that's quite, you know, it happens, but it's relatively unusual.

49:18Rose Wylie:Well, it started because I was selected to take part in the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, in the States. And I was the only English person who was in the final exhibition of this, and it was called Women to Watch. And because I was the only what was called Brit in an international other, in fact they were all American I think, Jermaine Greer became interested. She read an article in The Guardian. That was very helpful. And then things, I started winning things. Anyway, but then people say, are you a feminist? Are you, is it, oh it's because you're a woman that you're doing well.

50:01Rose Wylie:oh, you're doing well because you're old, you're doing well because women were neglected and now they're not being neglected, so their boxes tick. Actually, I don't like any of that. I like to be recognised for the painting and the quality of the painting. Yeah. Is that sort of quite clear? It's really clear, and I can see that. Later in life, you've found a lot more recognition. I'm just wondering, what does that feel like and how has that changed things for you? It feels great. Yeah, people noticing you. It feels great. I mean, one, I think it's funny. It's funny. The most place where you see it is locally, in your local life.

50:43Yeah.

50:44Rose Wylie:I mean, I don't, when people come from Japan or China to talk and look at things, I mean, that's nice. It's very, you're involved, you're included, and it's very nice to be included. Yeah. At a certain time, you're certainly definitely not included. but then I used to get into those things which are send-ins like the Royal Academy and the John Moores and I don't know what they all are the John Moores, East International there are certain things, Jawa, that you could send into and I used to get into those so then that all came together and it spiraled and then when Iswana asked me if I would care to join them that was great I mean, that was terrific.

51:32Rose Wylie:And then now paintings, they go and they disappear as I paint them, which is nice. But locally, you know, I was regarded as a wife and mother by some people and they've never forgotten that. But for a lot of other people, I'm a painter. Feel free to disagree with this comparison, but I'm going to make it anyway. I might be wrong about this, but coming to see you today, I was thinking about Alfred Wallace. And I was thinking about how he was discovered in his 70s by Ben Nicholson in St Ives. And he was obviously a seafarer and he used to just paint boats and coastal scenes on bits of old board that he found lying around the place.

52:20And those St Ives artists were just blown away by the honesty of what he was doing and the naivety of it. and I don't know but I just feel like your work has that same instinctiveness, honesty about it.

52:36Rose Wylie:I like Alfred Wallace. The only one small problem with what you said is the word naivety. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because obviously I'm not naive, this is the thing. Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. If you're naive, you don't know the rules of the game. You know, you do what you do but you haven't got judgment. I have got judgment. I know the game. I know the rules. If you paint like Rembrandt or Leonardo, everybody's happy. But if you paint like somebody else who is somehow something else, then they're not happy. It's a funny situation. I like the early Renaissance more than the high Renaissance. But mostly people prefer the high Renaissance.

53:24Rose Wylie:certainly not everybody but a lot of people I think one of the reasons I drew that comparison is because I think I don't mind it because I like Alfred Wallace I think he is I think he is direct and I think ultimately he painted what he saw which is what I feel that you do with directness yes there is a connection but there's also a connection with me and Pulka but nobody makes it nobody makes a connection with me and Pulka Go on, tell me about that then. Well, his drawings, not so much his paintings, because the line he uses is very good. Invention comes into this, and Polker is invented. And he has a good line.

54:05Rose Wylie:If you concentrate on having a marvellous line, you're not concentrating on fidelity, you know, realism. Waxwork, which is what Coleridge calls it. Coleridge hates waxwork. I don't mind a certain amount of realism. I like Pachamia. I love Magritte. I love Rousseau, Henri Rousseau, the douanier. And they all considered him to be a bit naive. But in fact, he's a brilliant and hugely skillful painter. I want to ask you about possessions, stuff, things, objects. Stuff, yes, I like stuff. Objects, yeah. I love objects. Do you? It depends on the object. Yeah. How do you choose what's going to live with you then in terms of objects?

54:50Rose Wylie:I just have to like the look of it. If it's a plate, a cup, I just have to like it. Everything, the tile, I have to like the colour. I don't want some crappy old pattern on my tile. I like honest materials. I tend to buy cotton or wool or linen. I don't have nylon or brine nylon. Why don't you? I just don't like the look of it or the feel of it or the way it falls or the way it moves. there's nothing much I like about it the way it accepts colour I love cotton and I like ageing too as well which is happy for me I don't want my painting to look like a bright new shiny car I was looking at the other day and a friend, she had a book of stick-in little postcards which somebody kept for years and years and years it was stapled together, stapled to gone rusty the corners were all air marked it was all stained I loved it She loved it too.

55:52Rose Wylie:But I also do like shiny new cars, but I didn't like my painting to look like shiny new cars. Do you have a shiny new car? I love it. Do I have one? Yeah. No, no, I haven't got a shiny new car. No, I didn't think you had. You just admire them. No, I have nothing against shiny new. I mean, I love conkers and they're shiny and new and I like, but I also like crumpled and old. I'm scattered. You'll pick up. I'm scattered. I conflict. Yeah, I saw in an interview you called yourself a radical non-consumer. Tell me about that. What does that mean? I'm not always rushing out to the shops to buy things.

56:28Rose Wylie:I have a lot of stuff because I've accumulated it. And if the look of what you put on changes, I just go back and I find something. I reassemble it in the way that suits me at the moment. I don't throw things away. I like stuff. I don't... I've got a lot of things that I've kept and so I can always cut them up or rejig them to make them different or that interests me. I don't care what interests somebody else or not interests me. Do you know where everything is in here? Yes. You do? And in this space? Vaguely. Well, no, because you could challenge me and say, well, okay, find me that book. I'd find that a bit different.

57:14Rose Wylie:Vaguely, yes. sort of. It's done chronologically. Yeah. The filing is chronologic. I can, it depends how much, how deep in a pile it is. Yeah. Are you ready for the psychology question? No, I probably won't answer it. Do trouble. You can try, you can have a go at it. No, I just think, I wondered to what extent you think this environment is reflective of, of your internal state somehow. I'd love to know how it relates to your state of mind. I think it probably does. State of mind, yeah. I mean, why not? How can it not? Yeah. I'm not controlling. There are no affectations, so yes, it's going to reflect.

57:52Yeah.

57:53Rose Wylie:And this isn't an affectation. I've told you, it's what happens. Yeah. So would you say that you've got quite a, I don't know what word you would use for your brain, busy, jumbled, multifaceted. How would you explain how you feel within yourself in that way? Open.

58:16Rose Wylie:I like stuff coming in I like new stuff I like to hear new stuff I love to look at new work that I've never seen I don't want to be stuck in a particular time or rut I love new I've said looking at new work artists' work films, photographs examples of stuff Yeah Theories, philosophies, music There's an obvious thing to say but there's a kind of unfussiness to it Right, it seems to me I wonder if the bigger picture is more important to you Certainly is, yes Than the fine detail, yeah The big picture is something of quality and that it's lasting and something which is actually good and morally good and is good That's the big picture And that certainly is important to me.

59:13Because I think I read somewhere that Roy was a bit more of a minimalist. I don't know if that's the right word, but he sometimes struggled with your clutter. Is that fair to say?

59:22Rose Wylie:So he used to come and photograph my work. I used to say, would you? And he said he wouldn't come in unless I did a bit of clearing up, because he didn't like the fact that he would get paint on his clothes and stuff. I used not to get paint on my clothes, because I don't know, I managed to naturally negotiate a problem I negotiated. He was more organised, put it that way. Yeah. I used to use his paint to use all the lumps. Finally, he said, you know, the paint's got too many lumps. I used to use it. I like lumps. Yeah. So was it about 10 years ago that he died, Roy? A bit more. A bit more than that.

1:00:01Rose Wylie:Probably about nearly 14, I think. Okay. How did that change your experience of being in the house? Because that's obviously a big shift. Well, it's just empty. It's funny because you've got no one to giggle with. And anything, if you've had a long relationship with someone, things take their place within the long relationship. They don't become a big deal suddenly, but they don't become exaggerated. It all is part of a big continuum. I like that. I like long relationships. and a shared past. So that all went. So that was difficult, but I managed to do that. Yeah, because I've met different people who have said different things about loss and space and some people find it too much because they're reminded too much of that person by being there and other people find it comforting.

1:01:00and I wondered which of those things you felt.

1:01:03Rose Wylie:Well, I am reminded that I like that. That's fine. That's good, I think. So I just managed. I don't know. You know, there are lots of stuff of Roys which are round. I haven't bothered to move them, like clothes in the cupboard and things. I've just left them. And the main, while there's nobody there and there's an element of emptiness, You know, there's a big gap where there's nothing empty. And a whole amount of fun goes out of your life. But other things come in which compensate, which is the freedom of being able to work uninterrupted. But then you can't share. You know, I watch films and you're not sharing them, which is a big loss.

1:01:52Rose Wylie:It's a huge loss.

1:01:57Did you used to ask him to look at your work while it was in progress? Did you ever help each other with that as you were working?

1:02:07Rose Wylie:Well, I just used to get on. Roy would come and photograph something if I asked him. And he used to say that there's not a lot you can say about art. And on the other hand, I used to say there's a huge amount you can say about art. You can say what you haven't done and why you've done something. I mean, finally, you can't say why it's got quality. It's very difficult to put that into words, but you can talk about other stuff.

1:02:37Rose Wylie:So I was possibly more outgoing in terms of talking about my work than him. Did he talk to me about work? Mostly, I think I got on with a bit of work and he would photograph it at the end when it was finished. I sometimes would come down to stuff and say, I can't do that, but I can't do it. It's all just absolutely horrible. I can't. You can make a painting and it just isn't right. It's horrible. It's unpleasant. Very unpleasant. It's just wrong. It has no quality. I used to go down and say it's wrong. He just used to say how you'll manage. In fact, I did manage. But he didn't come in and say, well, you could do this or you could do that.

1:03:24Rose Wylie:We didn't really work like that. Yeah. But he liked what I did. Yes, I'm sure. Which was, oh, that's a help. Rose, you're in your 90s. There's a lot of wisdom there. And I wondered... Are you sure? Yeah, maybe not. You'll be able to tell me. We hope so. We hope so. I wonder just what, looking back over life, what do you reflect on the things that kind of, I suppose when you were younger, you thought sort of mattered more than they really do. You know, how do you sort of look back on, like, what actually doesn't matter, you know, when you get to your point of life? Nothing much, I don't think. I mean, you know, it's going to end.

1:04:12Rose Wylie:When I say that, I've told you I'm conflicted. The things that matter too much hugely to me is trying to do something which is a good painter, that has quality, good quality, and that drives me, that matters. Okay, so you're very driven by making the work. Yes, I'm driven by the hope that the work will be, you know, it has some quality to it. And I don't mean bad quality, because quality can go either way, can't it? It can be good or bad. I meant good quality. As you said earlier, you make a piece now and it flies out of the door because you're now extremely well established as an artist. Do you regret that that's come at this point and you couldn't just reverse it?

1:05:00Rose Wylie:No, it's different, but it's the same. It's all exactly the same. With every painting, you're doing the same thing. You're trying to make a painting, which is a good, you know, it's kind of a good painting. So it's changed because they used to sit here and nobody looked at them or gave them the slightest thought. But now I do them. But from my point of view, the doing of them is exactly the same. It's just how they end up, which is different, which is true, and how people see them, the perception that people see, how they see them is true. Yeah. How do you feel, what do you feel about your energy levels?

1:05:41You know, do you feel like you want to just keep making work forever? Is that how it feels to you?

1:05:49Rose Wylie:No, I think you make probably less. Yeah. I don't, you can't. No, no, I used to size three large campuses at a time. No, I don't. I never do three. I think, well, why do three at a time? It's just, you know, it's hard. Why do it? So I don't do three. And I've noticed that. And obviously energy levels drop, but the excitement doesn't drop. Yeah, that's really great to hear. So you've been here for nearly 60 years. It's seen a lot of lives, this house. It's where you make your work. It's a studio as well as a home. What a fantastic building. You know, it's supported you through a lifetime. Oh, I love it.

1:06:39Yeah.

1:06:40Rose Wylie:Do you know, we had a hurricane, and was it 97? When was the hurricane? Doesn't matter. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yeah. I think it was 97. Not even a tile came off the house. Really? It doesn't need a lot of upkeep. Yeah. I mean, people will say, well, I can see that you don't do any upkeep. They'll say, well, it does need it, but you don't just actually do it. I mean, structurally, it stands. Yeah. When does it date from? late 1600s Amazing Which is nice So given that whole story then how would you put into words the importance of this house in your life overall Well I just find the house okay I mean it's I could have more space, perhaps that would be quite interesting, but then I quite like contained space, I like the fact that over there I can get two big paintings in and they just fit that beam and they just fit the door and they fit the ceiling and they fit the floor.

1:07:42Rose Wylie:And I like that. That is determined by the house. But I like the house. I have no problem with the house. I like brick and I like wood and there's a lot of brick and I like plaster. I love plaster. Oh, I must tell you, in the dining room, a little while ago I had a, no, it's still on, There's a piece of sculpture in the Venice Biennale, which is a light bulb. It's my light bulb from my computer room up there. It is a copy of my light bulb. And it was hanging in a palazzo on the canal in Venice. I didn't go, but I saw photographs. And the Platzo was a smashing, ornate Italian palace place on the canal.

1:08:31And it had bare plaster where it had deteriorated and they hadn't tarted it up.

1:08:39Rose Wylie:It had bare plaster. It had brick. It had wood. And I thought, well, it's a bit like my dining room because I've got bare plaster. I've got brick and I've got wood. Not the same scale. Not the grandeur. It's not take the grandeur away, take the scale away. But it had certain elements which were the same. But the palazzo had pillars, columns. So I looked at the dining room and thought, well, why haven't I got columns and pillars? And I looked at it and I thought, well, with a bit of deft painting, I could convert part of the wall into a pilaster. so it took me three minutes to do two pilasters in the dining room and it was all inspired by this Italian building and it's funny because they've got no depth.

1:09:29Rose Wylie:I've painted a Doric capital onto what could have been a column but which wasn't a column because you couldn't see it like that but now I've converted. I've given the dining room two Doric columns. And it literally took three minutes. I took a pint of paint from here. I thought, I don't want to drop paint all over the dining room floor. And I didn't. I just, I did that and that. You'll see it downstairs.

1:10:02Rose Wylie:And I was having dinner with my children. They knew I was going to do it. They knew that I might do it. And my daughter was sitting at the dining room table and she suddenly shouted out, oh, you've done it. she saw, I hadn't mentioned it she noticed that I'd done it It strikes me that the word instinctive keeps coming into my head but you're just very instinctive I think, aren't you? I just thought I'd go and do it but it's taken me 58 years to do it I mean it took me three minutes to paint it but to think of doing it I only thought of doing it because of the Italian building on the Renaissance building on the canal in Venice and I just thought, well, I haven't got a column but then I thought I can make one too, I mean.

1:10:52Is there anything else that you want to do here that you haven't done yet?

1:10:55Rose Wylie:Yeah, I did the same thing. I did the hinge in the dining room as well. I don't like taper. I like parallel lines. I don't like tapered candles. Okay. And I don't like, there's a hinge over there. You can't see it at the moment. It's a parallel. Oh, yes, there is. Oh, yeah. On the top of the bits of paper, there's a hinge. Can you see it painted white? The lines are parallel. Yeah. Downstairs in the dining room, they taper. You're going to change them. I have changed them. I've blacked. It's a black hinge. I've blacked. I've made it parallel just with paint. How do you explain why you don't like tapering?

1:11:33Rose Wylie:I don't like the shape. Also, it disappears and goes in. It's perspective, isn't it? Parallel is isometric. It goes on. It never ends. Also, I noticed that you've allowed a lot of the plants from the garden to grow inside, haven't you? Yes, I haven't stopped them. Roy was against that. He thought it was – he didn't think it was a good idea. It's actually flowered in here. Oh, really? It's amazing. It's jasmine. Yeah. And it's come up and it's flowered in here. Yeah. But in the dining room it doesn't flower. Yeah. And people do have a habit of trimming it, which I don't... Obviously, you've got to get through the door.

1:12:18Rose Wylie:But otherwise, I like it. Rose, thank you so much. We need to have some lunch at some point, don't we? We need lunch. I'm sure we've done our hour and a half. I think you've done really well. Are you happy? I think it's been so interesting. I'm a massive fan, and I think this has only helped that. But, you know, seeing you in your environment, and it's helped me make sense of your world. So it's been a real pleasure. Thank you. It's a real world. I can see that. And it's not sloppy, but it's flexible as well. Yeah. Thank you, Rose. Not a bit.

1:12:58Thank you so much for listening. And big thanks to Rose and her team for allowing us into her home. It really, really was such a special day. After we finished recording, they very sweetly put on some lunch for us. So some amazing scotch eggs, pork pies, that sort of thing, proper English lunch. And it was just magical. Really, really lovely to meet Rose and to find out more about her. We also, of course, did a house tour, as we always do. And that was so fascinating. So as always, the house tour will be available to homing members on Patreon. So do have a lookout for that there. I'm also going to try something new this time, actually.

1:13:34I'm going to post up some photographs of the house on Patreon, along with some of my reflections on the visit. So I guess some of the things that I learned that have stayed with me as well. So you'll find all of that at patreon.com slash homing with Matt. The other thing is that Juliet from Podshop told me that we need some more reviews. So if anyone listens to this regularly and hasn't left us a review, I would so appreciate it. The reason being that the more reviews we get, the more that the algorithm recommends us to other people and they then find the show and it grows, which is amazing. So thank you in advance if you can do that.

1:14:11This episode was produced by Podshop with music by Simeon Walker. Thanks so, so much for being here. I hope you enjoyed it and I will talk to you very soon. Bye for now.