Piers Atkinson is an artist, illustrator, milliner, costume designer, party organiser, fashion editor and DJ with an "insatiable curiosity". Piers’s creations regularly appear in the pages of Vogue, Italian Vogue, V Magazine, Tatler and the London broadsheets and now you can own one of his fantastic original creations and help fund conservation work in the UK by bidding in our #NestboxAuction run in partnership with London Fashion Week. Piers lives in east London close to my own home near the famous Hackney Marshes and he's written this week's London Blog:
I grew up in the countryside in Norfolk and, although the bright lights of the Big City beckoned, after I moved out of my parent’s home I always missed the sights and sounds that Mother Nature gives us. My next door neighbour was an incredible artist called Bruce Lacey, a pagan artist, who celebrates the cycles of nature; Spring to Summer, Autumn to Winter. It was only when I moved away from the fantastic skies and sunsets of Norfolk, away from the moonlit nights, the buzzing of the insects, the birdsong and the micro-cosmos hedgerows that I realised what seemed everyday and almost mundane were, in fact, real gifts and treats of existence. The fast pace of indoor, online, modern living means we very often don’t spare a thought for ‘nature’ unless, like now, it’s related to big storms, floods and personal or financial danger. Perhaps we are caught off-guard occasionally in a park when we hear the first musical call of a blackbird in the Spring when we are reminded of the calming joys of Nature.
I am very lucky to have moved to a home that overlooks the amazing nature reserves at Hackney Marshes where cyclists, dog owners, boatmen and women, sportsmen and women, and walkers spend hours enjoying the big outdoors. I walk almost every weekend, even on those miserable days, and walk along the Lea River that runs through the Lee Valley Regional Park, marvel at the seagulls eating the maybugs, giggle at the ducklings and goslings in the spring, watch the leaves grow, spread and fall, and I am constantly grateful to have found somewhere that gives me the kick I love from this fashionable city of London AND to have a quieter place to unwind. There is even a marshland bird sanctuary ‘The WaterWorks Nature Reserve’ about ten minutes from me where coots and moorhens do their thing and my artist friend Kate Malone’s huge glazed pottery fish leap in and out of the reclaimed gravel bed water filters. So when the RSPB contacted me, as part of the ‘fashion community’ to help them raise funds and awareness for their cause, I was more than happy to ‘decorate a bird box’!
But what to do? I should make something that is brand-relevant which means (in my case) something funny. And probably to use the cherries worn so famously by Anna Dello Russo and Rihanna.
I’ve always loved the scene in Batman Returns when the fabulous fashionista Catwoman almost eats a poor little birdie, but she chooses not to! I wanted to make our bird box echo that; that we have a choice when it comes to helping our environment survive intact, whether that means deciding to recycle, to putting seed out for wildlife in the winter, to hanging bird boxes or whether to take a more pro-active or dramatic stand. So we made a funny ‘Catwoman meets Atkinson Muse’ bird box, moved the entrance to make a lipstick adorned ‘mouth’ and added a pair of the cherries and a glittery millinery veil. And a wig. It’s a pity that she wouldn’t survive a winter out there and the glue and paint could harm baby birds as I think this glamourpuss would cheer up any wintery scene, but this was made as an object for someone to treasure and to remind us that we can always make a choice: to help or ignore.