My chums Sarah, Gary and Viviane share a studio in an old police station building in Deptford. They've all made comics about sheep, so they called their studio the Fleece Station. Reading stuff on Sarah's blog about settling in there was pretty interesting, but on Saturday they had a studio-warming party, which gave me an opportunity to go and see what it's like for myself.
My first impression was surprise that it — and the new Deptford Police Station right next door — are so far away from the main road, way down a not very populous and very poorly lit road that's a bit grim and scary (It's no surprise that poor Gary got mugged there the other week). It made me wonder how much goes unreported just because no one wants to trek down the dark scary street just to get there. I know it would put me off.
The Old Police Station is currently filled with creative types — illustrators, animators and the like — but had a bit of a bad reputation when it was in use, with stories of police thuggery and the like, but although many of the original features are still there (including the cells and even some unclaimed paper files), with the walls covered in vintage photos and fairy-lights, it didn't feel too bad. The woman who runs the cafe is also curating the Deptford Museum with the help of locals, and it's mostly their pictures that adorn the walls.
The cells are pretty much as they were left, and are pretty grim, with tiled walls, tiny windows and adverts for Crimestoppers on the ceiling. Although they are grim, the fact that they are still there means that people can't forget the building's original purpose, which I think is important not to brush away in a nice little wave of gentrification, although it did seem a bit weird to see people standing around them with booze. Ironic, too, since I expect most of the people incarcerated in there were probably dumped in there to sleep off a drunk. [see more pics here]
The Fleece Station studio itself is upstairs, and very pleasant indeed. I wanted to stay in there for ages just to look at all the pretty pictures and browse all the gorgeous books.
I consoled myself with an adorable sheepish cupcake and promptly bored/astounded everyone I could by blathering on about my Interesting day, to discover that it's very hard to tell people about a man shooting ball-bearings at his head or making his own yoghurt live on stage without sounding completely bonkers yourself. But I'm starting to think that some of the stuff at Interesting could be combined into a super-award-winning show at the Edinburgh Fringe.
And then I banged Rian Hughes up in a cell. Because I could.
