“It feels like you can in Medway”

What Steven asked Xtina Lamb of Intra Arts

In the first of a two-part interview, Steven sat down with Xtina Lamb of Intra Arts and Wendy Daws of the Mess Room, initially to talk about Medway Open Studios, which is happening now! Due to the election, these interviews ended up being slightly delayed, but you can still hear more about Medway Open Studios in the piece we published earlier this week. Steven spoke with Xtina about what goes on at Intra Arts, the effect of closing UCA on Medway, working with young people, and more.

Xtina Lamb

Where were you born?
Hertfordshire.

What jobs did your parents do growing up?
My dad was an engineer for the Central Electricity Generating Board. My mum was a stay-at-home mum and then she worked in shops and care homes.

How did you find school?
I did alright at school, but I was always trying to get the arty angle. If I could draw a picture rather than write a long essay, I'd do that. Nobody in my family or nobody I knew had any artistic career, so I felt like I was treading water for a long time without really knowing who I was or what I could do. I was very lucky though that my secondary school did tell me what university was because I didn't know and suggested that it might be a good idea to go. They set me up with a different art teacher because my art teacher used to like putting his feet on the table and pointing at us to a loaf of bread to draw, and that would be it. But this other art teacher explained to me how the world could just expand outwards with possibilities if you went to art school.

You went on to university?
Yeah, I did my foundation at St. Albans, I went to Falmouth in Cornwall and did fine art, and then I did a post-grad at the Slade.

What is your preferred artistic medium?
When I was at the Slade, I did fine art media, which gives you a license to do whatever you like that carries the concept. Mostly I do printmaking, but I feel that I can use shredded bits of plastic off of a beach, or whatever carries the idea.

What was your first full-time job?
I've never had a full-time job. Literally never had a full-time job. I've been freelancing all the time. I was at art school for eight years, so I had a lot of jobs like working in care homes. Care worker was my biggest support after college while I was trying to get arty jobs that didn't seem within reach in London. Then I ended up doing web design and got used to not having a salary position. I preferred it because it gave me flexibility. I did have long-term contracts, but I was never actually an employee.

What brought you to the Medway towns?
Love (laughs). I had a few friends who were making it their campaign to get me to move to Rochester, and I always said, ‘No, no, no, I'm going to be in London forever.’ But as it happened, I started hanging out in Medway more and then I was seeing somebody in Medway, and I wasn't really spending much time anymore where I lived in London, so I kind of admitted that it was like moving to Medway by osmosis.
When I was still living in London, I was coming down here a lot. I met Wendy (Daws, next week’s interviewee), she gave me some storage space in the Tack Room and then very gently pushed me towards the idea that there were also some other very interesting spaces in other properties, and I might want to go and have a look at them. I had my studio here before while I was still living in London. I had quite a big space, but that was Wendy's doing.
But also, there was a reason for coming here because it felt like it had an infrastructure. There was enough in place. There was WOW magazine. You could see what was happening because they made it visible. That's another reason why I think Open Studios is important. Being able to see what's visible makes you feel supported as an artist, that there's an infrastructure of some sort. It was developed to a point where people were doing stuff. It felt like there were opportunities, and there was a chance to do stuff when you hadn't got a lot of money. We've both done stuff that we didn't even think about the risk. You just jump in and do these things because it feels like you can in Medway.

Why is that?
The cost of properties. We could take on leases that didn't involve maintenance, where people were willing to take a punt on some creative ideas. Featherstone's were supportive. There's a lot of people who get on and do stuff, and I think you don't want to feel like you're doing that in isolation. London feels much more competitive, although there’s awesome projects that happen there. It's quite hard to do it without some kind of financial security. I didn't have a bean when I started Intra.

What is your official occupation?
Artist.

What additional roles, paid or unpaid, do you do?
Oh, God. Medway Open Studios. I'm a director of Mess Room, Sun Pier House, Medway Fine Printmakers. Intra Arts. I think that's it. I'm on the consortium of Ideas Test. I have so many hats.

Intra Arts

What is Intra Arts?
Intra Arts is a creative organisation that runs a makerspace that houses Medway Fine Printmakers, a studio with screen printing, etching press, all kinds of facilities for printmaking. It's also got a gallery space in the front windows. It used to be a department store and so it's got these big plate glass windows at the front, and we've converted it into a properly lit and easy to hang gallery space that changes as a programme, curated programme of exhibitions that changes every month. People that are walking past can see these exhibitions because a lot of them wouldn't think to walk into an art gallery, but they do interact with this. Intra Arts runs that space, there are three directors, and we go into schools, and we run projects with different groups and then we run activities and festivals and get involved in all kinds of projects with other organisations too.