Helen of LOIS: In Studio
“It’s a very well curated mess, yeah that’s what I’m going to go with” says Helen looking around her studio while hugging a cup of tea. Helen’s business, by the name of LOIS, after her middle name, was previously a shop in Peckham selling the products of UK independent makers. LOIS closed its physical doors in January, and now takes residence in a cute spare room in the Brixton apartment Helen shares with her boyfriend. In here, preparations are underway to re-launch the shop online at the end of the month- the opening of its virtual doors, if you will.
On this particular gloomy monday it’s a delight to be in Helen’s cosy abode as she talks me through the charms of her in-home studio. Of the space’s previous incarnations, she describes “it has been a bedroom- it was my bedroom when I first moved in here five years ago- and then it changed to being a kind of storeroom, then it was a room for lodgers. It’s been lots of things”. Her workspace is set up with a large desk facing a wall with shelves leftover from the shop. Stuffed with samples, tape, stamps, notebooks, folders, topped off with signature LOIS bunting, it’s a crafty paradise. “I try really hard to pretend that I’m not a hoarder, but I am and I like that that doesn’t look out of place in here. You go to some peoples houses that are new build, as this is, but you kind of think aww your stuff’s really nice but its kind of random esoteric stuff you’ve bought and it’s just on Ikea furniture, whereas I kind of like the fact that we’ve made a lot of it ourselves, and made it a bit nicer.” 
“The birch ply square unit shelves were in the display of the shop and I’m now randomly putting them around the house, like one in the living room, one in the bedroom. They’re not ideal really because they’re shop furniture but they look quite nice and I didn’t want to get rid of them.” Many of her items, both functional and decorative, have been acquired from an eclectic array of sources, “I got the desk for free from an old caterer, so the underside of it is caked in royal icing, which I’ve never decided to get rid of, and lots of food colouring as well.”
The studio is still a work in progress “because its also a spare bedroom, that fold up thing there is a bed” she points to the corner “I’m gonna be putting a shelf acrossit so that it can be a work bench as well. And we’ll put some fabric over it because right now it’s a bit like” she gestures with jazz hands and puts on a voice similar to the ermahgerd meme “hello I’m a bed, I come from Ikea.” 
Among other toys- plastic dinosaurs and farm animals- sits the LOIS tour guide canary, “he’s from a bargain store… a canary with a dodgy foot, so of course he was going to be for the shop.” The cheery toy bird has since become LOIS’ signature social media character “I found that just taking random pictures of stuff was really boring so I got a bird and put a sign on it, and now he’s in a lot of the pictures. He’s your friendly guide.”
“I want people to be aware of how much hard work goes into making all of this stuff, the amount of effort people put into it”, she says of her aims for the online shop. Compared to the shop, where she sold work by many different artists, “with LOIS 2.0 I’m only working with a very limited number, and everything I stock is either exclusive, or stuff we’ve done as a collaboration.” With help from her documentarian friend, the website will feature little videos with each artist, “so you’re more aware of where your stuff came from, and who made it. I hope that will expose people to the independent makers industry.” The new online space for LOIS poses a huge advantage in that it has infinite space to feature each artist individually, something that the physical shop didn’t have the capacity for. Online you will literally be able to look behind the scenes and “watch people working.” 
Through the makers she showcases, Helen aims “to show a range of methods of making things”. She will take this a step further by running a series of workshops in the summer. They plan to take place at Café Viva, just next door to where the physical shop used to be. Helen excitedly divulges, “Lily (the owner of Café Viva) is hoping to open in evenings and get an alcohol license. So at the workshops we’re planning that there’s cake and booze while you’re there.”
Helen hopes that the re-launch is “a raving success and I make shitloads of money!” She laughs “no, I don’t know really, I mean partly that, but also I just want people to continue to like it! I’ve built up a nice loyal following of people through social media and doing events, and I want to keep that going.”
Be sure to check out LOIS when it launches after March 30th at http://www.lois.me.uk
By Emilie Shane