The Weekly Wall: Natasha Nuttall for Camden Collective. Imagery by Rosh Thanki

The Weekly Wall | #016 | Natasha Nuttall for Camden Collective

Camden Collective , Collective Auction Rooms, 5-7 Buck Street, NW1 8NJ

Nearest Station: Camden Town 

When your best friend creates a wall, you can bet that there’s not gonna be any competition for it making ‘The Weekly Wall’ feature immediately. I mean, I’m not even sure if that’s a sentence I’d ever thought I would say. But yes, my best friend HAS created her own wall and bloody great it is. So great that a photo shoot was, of course, the immediate response. Colourful – check, triangles- check, impactful – check. Anyone else been watching too much ‘Friends’ on Netflix recently? Obviously not if you don’t get that reference.

Created for her co-working space in Camden, Miss Nuttall has adorned an interior wall with brightly-coloured pastel rays beaming from a central point. Painted with the help of another babe, Ella Masters, the wall is part of her contribution to the space’s voluntary scheme to improve the collective. Having trained with Morag Myerscough for around the last year, Nuttall has learnt from one of the best and this colourful creation is the proof in the pudding. I must say, it feels a little strange to talk about this lady so formally though so instead I thought I’d ask her a few questions about her first ever wall instead. All I’m gonna say is, watch this space because big things are coming!

I’m quite well known for my love of triangles, so I knew that whatever I was going to paint needed to include some form of triangle. It wouldn’t be MY wall without a triangle!

With the co-working space being a hub of creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and inspiration I wanted my wall to reflect this and have a lot of energy. I’m finding myself quite drawn to stripes at the moment, so felt like this was a kinda magical and abstract way to incorporate both triangles and stripes, as well as A LOT of colour.

Initially, I had played around with a few different geometric patterns but overall I wanted something bold and colourful which wouldn’t take me weeks to paint. From my time helping Morag Myerscough on her projects in 2017, I knew painting with multiple colours took a lot longer than you might think. I was painting the wall as part of my 2-hour volunteer donation to the co-working space, but it ended up taking 10 hours so looks like I’m sorted for brownie points for next 5 months!

The Weekly Wall: Natasha Nuttall for Camden Collective. Imagery by Rosh Thanki

Well, considering I didn’t technically choose these colours and was initially a bit worried, I think they actually work quite well together. Let me explain: because it was painted as a volunteering project I just used whatever paint they had left over from odd jobs around the space. I had planned on using a yellow too, but I couldn’t find it in the paint cupboard so I think that might’ve been wishful thinking.

Despite my initial doubts, I think it’s quite a fresh and funky palette – kinda retro in a way. I’m glad I used the 2 different tones of pink as I think it adds an edge to the design which could’ve been too ‘in your face’ if I’d just stuck with the 4 bold colours.

I did have a moment of panic when I posted a half white, in progress shot on Instagram and everyone was loving it. On day 2 of painting I considered leaving it as it was, but then Ella (talented illustrator and member of CC, who was helping me paint) slapped a bit of paint onto the wall and that was it. I’m so glad that we carried on to finish the full-colour version!

Eeek! I can’t tell you how exciting it was to see people ‘gramming the wall. The only problem with this first wall is that to get to it, you have to be a member/visitor of the space – I’ve promised so many people from Instagram that I will sneak them in to shoot in front of my wall ha Lots of ‘business meetings’! Next time I’d definitely like to do something more accessible to the public.

The dream project? Oooh, that is a tough one, especially as I’m the most indecisive and impulsive person. I’d definitely LOVE to decorate a whole cafe or restaurant – I’m so interested in environmental experiences and how people interact with art and design. I get so excited by that kinda stuff – it gives me so much energy. I’m trying to persuade CC to let me paint the toilets – every cool place needs an instagrammable toilet, right?

DAMN RIGHT! If you’re desperate to see this wall and want to join a co-working space, sign up to Camden Collective here. Check out Natasha’s process for the wall on YouTube here. Got a wall to share? Upload your imagery to Instagram with #theweeklywall and tag me so that I can share!