Local Heroes
THE SKINNY
February 2022 – Feature
Isla Cruickshank Glasgow-based designer Isla Cruickshank tells us how her family's culinary background informs her work in jewellery and homeware design Interview: Stacey Hunter Photography: Harry Anderson How has being raised by a family of talented cooks influenced your approach to design? I learned how to cook from a very young age from my Grandma and my Mum. I was always a creative kid and cooking felt like another outlet, exploring creativity through food. My awareness of how creativity could bleed into various activities led me to have an open mind about what design could be. My Mum and Grandma were also always so aware of waste and so efficient in the kitchen. This directly links to my approach in cooking and making. I like to think I am curious with material, being conscious and problem solving. This element of practicality within my creative practice I learned from home cooking and growing up rurally. — 36 —
Your work challenges our perceptions of waste – how did this theme emerge and where is it going in the future? It certainly wasn’t intentional, but it quite naturally appeared within my practice midway through my degree. I have been working as a private freelance cook since 2016, and doing this alongside my studies meant that my practice began honing in on themes such as waste and materiality at that stage. I was becoming increasingly aware of the amount of waste from the kitchens I was working within, and particularly materials that became redundant after consumption, such as eggshells. I genuinely feel like there is a wealth of potential in food as a material and we should be encouraging
