Katie Campbell, 2025 SPAB Scholar describes how her sketches and linocuts document her nationwide heritage conservation journey
I had done the bulk of Scholarship prep: 2 weeks of clothes for all British weather; steel toe cap boots; a tent; and a small library of heritage books (that, unsurprisingly, I would never have time to read), all collected in an ominously large pile next to my backpack. But there was one item, still to fit in my bag, which I became completely preoccupied with on the lead up to our first day: my sketchbook. What size should it be? A5? A4? Am I a pen and wash person, or a coloured pencil person? Perhaps a pastels stan? A short career in Architecture had taken me further and further away from hand drawing, and a mild panic set in that I didn’t know how to sketch anymore. Which end of the paintbrush do you hold again??
It was on a whim that I packed my lino cutting tools (somewhere between the hard hat and coloured pencils), thinking I could make a few quick prints in my sketchbook. That fateful whim somehow turned into 25 prints, carved and printed in kitchens from London to Orkney.
Making prints became a ritual of recording hectic days in a way which felt slow. Visits were filled to bursting with knowledge to scribble down maniacally, but printmaking insists you take your time in creating an image - or pay the inky, smudged, price.
I found this little dragon hiding in a turret at Ardkinglas House on Loch Fyne, and he was my most joyful print to make. During our time in country houses for the ‘Plunket’ portion of the scholarship, serpent-like creatures followed and coiled around us in the carvings and mouldings we were sketching. Their deep mythology and meaning to our culture became ever more apparent from house to house; but this little guy, perfectly formed in plasterwork, was by far the most cheeky and characterful.
I vividly recall carving my print of Duston Staithes; rising from the Tyne like a timber monolith from the deep, the Staithes were used to load coal and coke onto ships from 1893 until their closure in the 1970s. While carving the rhythmic verticals of the structure, I realised I had started to relax into a style of drawing and printmaking which had become more intuitive. After a few months of using the feared sketchbook (I went for A5 in the end), the paralysis of a blank page was easing, and I was seeing more clearly.
A brilliant gift of the scholarship, among many, is the time to draw everyday: and drawing everyday means learning to see better. Not in a SpecSavers advert sort of way, but in understanding how the materials of the building in front of you goes together (or not in some cases) - which doesn’t happen from just taking a photograph. I had gone into the scholarship obsessed with what style or medium I was going to use, missing the point of drawing entirely as a tool, not an end result.
Being immersed in the world of heritage crafts became central to my scholarship experience, so it felt only fitting to display my full journey of prints in something handmade; I settled on making a concertina to hold them. I was delighted to have the concertina accepted into the “Future of Arts and Crafts” exhibition at Standen House this summer, so you can see them all there until the end of September.
All prints are available through Katie Campbell's website individually and as a full concertina set, with each purchase donating a percentage to the Dance Scholarship Trust (DST) who part-fund the SPAB Scholarship.
Kate Campbell The Architect's Press or follow her on Instagram @the.architects.press
Until 30 September 2026, Katie's prints can be seen at National Trust Standen House in the exhibition of work selected for Living Standen: A Contemporary Response to the Arts & Crafts Movement and presented by Sussex Contemporary in Partnership with the National Trust.