Growing up, we had a two storey workshop next to our family home that, over the years, belonged to local craftspeople. It’s a simple timber structure, one room downstairs, one large vaulted space on the first floor and some steep wooden stairs in between (that you have to quickly learn to navigate without banging your head). I was always fascinated by this workshop and the artisans that practiced their trade there - Aubrey and Kenny the carpenters, filling the air with sawdust and nattering through the window to Dad while he tended the garden. Later came Barry, the furniture restorer and then Adrian, who kept his hands rather cleaner as a graphic designer but was a huge inspiration to me as a youngster. Many more followed after, but all the tenants had something in common: they all made a living by their hands and imaginations - I often wonder if each left a little of their own spirit in the roughly hewn walls. It feels likely that they did.
I don’t doubt that watching these self employed craftspeople influenced the young Mark Lord. I thought the idea of a small space to call your own, to work hard in and create to your heart’s content was a wonderful one. A simple dream for sure but in my opinion, all the best dreams are.
I returned home to Cornwall with my wife Becky in February 2025, after many years in lovely but landlocked Oxfordshire. Initially, we moved the printing press and my other equipment into just the ground floor of the old workshop, a tight squeeze when the Lino Lord Cornish print library is ever expanding. Nine months later and I’m delighted to say we have now settled in the upstairs as well, and my handmade print business is now well and truly at home.
While the ground floor is low ceilinged (characterful but functional) upstairs feels cavernous. The double height ceilings make it spacious and airy and its simple, plank walls and roof add a cosy ‘hygge’ feel. In fact, it has more than a little of a Norwegian fisherman’s hut vibe about it which feels very apt (just replace the rows of prints with a rack of herrings!). I now carve my lino prints at a table by the window, overlooking the woods that I explored as a child and where I now walk my whippet, Finn, several times a day. While I can’t see the sea from the workshop, we’re just twenty minutes from Falmouth and the picturesque towns of Portscatho, St Mawes and Coverack are a short drive away. There’s inspiration everywhere I look now I’ve returned home, back to my Cornish roots and where my heart has always been. And having the workshop I coveted as a child to retreat to and create my handmade prints, seems just too good to be true.
With space plentiful, I am now, to my great delight, able to hold printmaking workshops here in the studio. We have room for a number of people to come and learn to carve lino prints with me for the day (with delicious homebakes by Becky - she’s an excellent cook) right where I carve and print my work myself. I thoroughly enjoy teaching and watching the creations of my students unfold. While their ideas are ever so varied, it’s no great surprise that many people choose to carve a Cornish harbour print or a boat or even a plate of mackerel - prints inspired by a shared love of the sea.
And what do I love most about my new workshop? Well, it’s a space for me to create. A quiet space, with only the radio and perhaps the sound of Mum and Dad popping their heads round the door to see what I’ve been working on (often with a plate of biscuits in hand). It’s an analogue space, a place where I work hard but also relax, find peace and contentment in my traditional handmade craft. And the floor. I love the floor. It’s a piece of art in itself - paint splatters from the wonderful abstract artist who worked here, plenty of dents and nicks from heavy hand tools, marks that were made to measure a piece of fabric and now, splotches of printmaker’s ink in a deep ‘Lugger Blue’ have already found their way onto the patchwork history under my feet.
I know how lucky I am to have this workshop. A destiny perhaps? At the very least, a dream come true.
