SOUL SEARCHING

A look inside the pages of The Maverick Soul, the new book by interior designer Miv Watts in which she explores the distinctive homes of free-spirited creatives who have inspired her most

IIn the course of a life, if one is lucky, one meets a few people who leave a mark, touch the heart, turn a switch, leave a print on the soul. Such mentors can have an impact on one’s future and they can be the inevitable catalysts of change. In my case, often I didn’t want to listen to their advice and, by the same token, I failed to recognise the inspiration they gave me until much later in my life; too often they were gone. I had a grandfather who filled my holidays with adventure; who took me on walks in wild places, made secret camps, collected everything from found pieces of shrapnel to broken Spode china cups; who woke us at 4am with ‘scrams’ (snacks) and stealthily steered us into the dawn onto the Welsh moors. Fashioning go-carts from old perambulators, he would tie to them anything that might cause a cacophony of sound. Aside from setting me alight with a misplaced smoking pipe in the bottom of my cot as a baby, we never came to much harm, but we did raise a few eyebrows. We were an unruly bunch! I am grateful that I was able to spend a large part of my childhood on Anglesey with a man who made every one of his grandchildren feel special. With his teachings, I learnt to be true to myself, to recognise beauty, and to delight in the precious gift of an old man’s imagination. This has had a profound effect on the course of my life, not only in memories of an adventurous childhood, but in the actual sensual pleasures I found in his quirky world. His study was where he kept his roll-top desk, with its inky fountain pens and its drawer full of withered rubber bands, sealing wax and broken briar pipes. This drawer always contained a strong smell of sweet tobacco and rust, and to it he would turn in his creaky desk chair when a pipe needed filling. Then we knew another of his stories was about to begin. We, his grandchildren, would sit spellbound while we listened to his poems in his rolling Welsh vowels. At the end of the holidays, when it was time to leave, the lenses in his spectacles would turn foggy and, dressed in his fine Sunday suit, he would take out his big handkerchief and wave us away until he and his pennant receded into the immediate past and our focus switched instantly to the future. When he finally reached the end of his days, he insisted on having his knees up in his bed. This, he imagined, would give him a last look at his beloved Snowdon and the mountain trail we so often hiked. As we age, we begin to see the influence the past has had on our lives and the people we remember most are those who have been truthful, maybe sometimes even punishing, but with integrity and for the sake of something bigger in ourselves that we were yet too young to meet. The strangest discovery is the day we realise that, unconsciously, these mentors have had a hand in mapping the paths of our lives. They are the free spirits. They are the ones who lived like kings while the soles of their shoes were letting in water. These are the Maverick Souls. The Maverick Soul seeks to learn from actual experience, to stand on the edge, to feel the wind around them, often to fall, but always to persevere with the understanding that on occasion life might deal one a bad hand and this is an opportune time for personal growth. These people make most decisions based on trusting intuition. The homes they have built around themselves are a reflection of a multitude of clear choices and an avoidance of low-brow influences. These homes reflect free thought and free spirit. They are built from discerning choices, from items gathered from a variety of cultures; mementos from unforgettable events. There are stories in all these pieces because each one has had a personal resonance with its curator and with each story comes another layer of empathy and an understanding for humanity and one’s own personal place within it. These homes can be cluttered and chaotic or cool and clean-lined, but they are never contrived — the emphasis being on passion, never on trend. The Maverick Soul is a patchwork of a life lived to the full. Melancholy can be a positive force. What artist has not produced some of his best work under the dark cloud of melancholia? Out of the darkness comes light. Contrary to the media battering we endure, happiness is not a permanent state to which one can aspire. Happiness comes in fleeting moments of passing joy — there one minute, gone the next — leaving the indelible stain of hope. These homes represent an archive to both the recognition of the occupant’s hopes, joys and sadness and the courage required to live life on one’s own terms, to seek the genuine, to demand the authentic, to keep integrity in all one’s choices. This in turn provides a launch pad from which to enter the world with confidence, elegance, grace and vision. These people have inspired me for their courage to live outside what is perceived to be the empire of mass culture. They have an innate understanding of place and the connectedness to their immediate surroundings. Family history, memories, form, texture and integrity play an important part in their lives. In some cases, the world is their village and a passion for life means that travel is a large part of it. The narratives of other cultures influence decisions, and from this intimacy with the unfamiliar comes the ability to see life’s bigger picture. These Maverick Souls follow their instincts and chip away the assumptions and prejudices that keep the more fearful among us locked into the routine of a sometimes less fulfilling and often monochrome life. It has always been a passion of mine to explore the reasons behind why people surround themselves with the things that they do. From a career in set design for film and television, it was an enjoyable challenge to build a history around the characters by placing them in a set that revealed as much as it could about the personality of the protagonist. This, of course, is relevant in life; so much of ourselves we give away in our choices. Our homes give us the opportunity to express who we truly are in the stories of the things we surround ourselves with, the memories they trigger, the comfort they provide, the beauty in their very existence, the inspiration that comes from our collections, the knowing that these walls over time will witness every moment in the theatre of our lives and remain our closest confidante and our safest harbour for as long as we choose. An abridged extract from The Maverick Soul by Miv Watts with photography by Hugh Stewart and creative direction by Tracy Lines ( Hardie Grant, $60). Visit hardiegrantbooks.com

“The Maverick Soul seeks to learn from actual experience, to stand on the edge, to feel the wind around them, often to fall, but always to persevere”