Talking to: MADE by Rosie
Rosie Caley has a huge amount of strings to her bow. Rosie paints; taking on fine art commissions and creating murals as well as working as a painter and decorator. Additionally Rosie works in textiles, and builds geodesic domes. She talked to us recently about how she has used her skills to move from a 60-hour week office-based career in engineering, to fulfilling her dream of working for herself as an artist and maker, and also how the pandemic has affected her work. Although Rosie’s work has had to shift to mostly online and desk-based projects for the time-being, we think a maker with her ability to adapt and change directions will most likely do just fine in this most challenging of times for creatives.
Where are you at the moment? How are you coping with running your business in lock-down?
I live in a shared house in Easton, Bristol. There’s me and my girlfriend and one other. They are both key workers; I am at home whilst they are both off working. It’s quite hard sometimes to get motivated, just being in the house.
Are you able to create freely at home?
Yes, we have got a spare room that we rent as a studio/office space; I have taken it over. It’s a good space.
This is my second year working as an artist, and started off really good. My workload was doubling from last year, heading towards a business I could live off. But obviously lock-down has shot that down a little bit, because I was decorating and doing the fine art side, and both have been hit. I am trying not to stress out too much and adapt.
The garden of Easton mural
You studied art and renewable energy - how is your engineering work and work as an artist similar?
Some people think it’s bonkers having engineering and art as things you can do both of. But I guess the creativity steps over to art from engineering because engineering is problem solving, and art, for me, is a process of problem solving. The whole process of creating something, you have to find a resolution to things. I think that’s the commonality between the two subjects. Other than that it’s completely opposite.
The renewables for me at the moment have completely taken a back seat. Renewable energy used to be a passion rather than a vocation. But it’s really hard work, and a lot of maths, and very, very different; I used to work in an office with 95% blokes. It is quite an unbalanced industry and you have to battle quite hard as a female. I did it for about 6 years and it was alright, I would probably go back to it, but right now I want more freedom, and more creativity in my life.
Bluebell woods
A lot of your work is inspired by nature - with your interest in renewables, is that the way your background in engineering has fed into your practice?
Yeah, I am a hippy at heart! The interest in renewables started when I went travelling in Spain. An ex boyfriend and I helped build an offgrid natural birthing clinic. It got me into exploring the question ‘how the hell do you live in the middle of nowhere with no water and no energy and power?’, and that’s when I came back and started studying renewable energy. But I guess that stemmed from a love of nature; the fact I went travelling and found somewhere really remote and tried to live there as best as I could, nature is why I was interested in doing that. It’s all come from me just wanting to surround myself in nature.
So, studying art came before studying renewables? And now you have come back to it, so you have come full circle?
Yep, and now I am just spinning around. I am enjoying my own direction.
What are you proudest of so far out of the fine art work that you have done?
I think each piece I do is getting better. Because I didn’t really practise fine art for long enough before to get my own style. I like doing commissions, because it is really challenging. It’s for someone else, not just me doing it for the love of art. They have set me a challenge, I have to do it, and they have to like it. And there is a lot of pressure to get it right. I am a perfectionist, and I like it when you complete a commission and see their face and they love it, and you know you have got it right.
Moorland scene
What is inspiring you at the moment?
Nature as always, it is my healing thing, for me to just paint a scene and get lost in it, that is therapeutic. There is not much nature available right in the centre of the city, but Bristol is quite small, it is possible to just cycle and be in nature.
Before lock-down I was just launching myself into the Bristol arts scene, and meeting people like Neil at Room 212 . When lock-down happened Neil was running a little exhibition online, that gave some hope to artists to keep producing for something. I think it is a bit like free-falling for artists, creating when there isn’t an audience to create for. So, keeping in touch with the Bristol arts scene is inspiring me as well.