Benns, Adam & Victoria - Mixed Media Artist & Architect
Adam & Victoria Benns - Mixed Media Artist & Architect
From her studio in the home she shares with her Dartmouth Architect husband Adam and their three young children, Victoria creates Scribble Originals by making a careful line drawing from a child’s original picture. She adds a quirky quote from the child and then paints and embellishes the work with personalised objects – such as fabric from the child’s baby clothes and buttons from granny’s sewing box. The work is then embossed with the Scribble Original logo and individually signed by Violet Browne, a pseudonym of Victoria. Each picture is then locally framed.
Victoria said: “I add a little bit of sparkle to the child’s magic! I embellish their work with all sorts of carefully selected bits and bobs, from buttons and ribbon to pages, from old books and little parts from broken mechanical objects.
I use items personal to the child and their family along with other finds of my own which I have acquired through scouring local shops, markets and charity shops. I get very excited about buttons and beads and love collecting and exploring vintage shops and stalls for great finds!”
The former art teacher gained her inspiration from hours of watching and listening to her three young children - Charlie, aged eight, Hazel, aged seven, and five-year-old Arthur.
She said: “All three are very creative. Charlie’s drawings are quite technical, Hazel is very bold and colourful with her pictures and Arthur is an ‘emerging artist’. The playroom is full of paper, scissors and creative paraphernalia. Kids are so free when they’re being creative and say the funniest things, which I’ve captured in my collages, such as ‘I could make a really big pyramid out of cheese’ and ‘monkeys have chins!’.
“With three children so young and close in age I’ve needed to stay at home and it’s been inspirational being creative with them. I learnt a lot from my teaching days on the psychology of how children learn and draw. I love watching the amazing things they create and it feels such a waste to get rid of their artwork – I have lots of it filed away! It seemed a shame not to do something with all this creativity and that’s where the idea for Scribble Originals began”
Victoria recently exhibited Scribble Original at the Dartmouth Art weekend and has already started selling commissions through her website and word of mouth.
“Friends in marketing and sales who have seen Scribble Original said, ‘you just have to do something with this idea’.”
As well as Scribble Original, Victoria still paints, under the name Victoria Benns, for commissions and exhibitions.
Victoria has been avidly drawing and painting since she was a child, and said her mum never went anywhere without paper and pens to feed her daughter’s habit.
After A levels, Victoria went to Winchester School of Art for her foundation year and then Leeds University to study a BA in Furniture Design. After a brief stint in design, she followed her passion for art through teaching the subject at secondary schools in Oxford and Bath.
Victoria met Adam in 1996 in the Green Dragon pub in the village of Stoke Fleming where Adam grew up. Following in his father Bob Benns’ footsteps, Adam studied for a BSc in Architecture at Bath University. He met Victoria at the end of his degree and went on to do his diploma at Oxford Brookes. Adam and Victoria lived in Oxford for two years, then Bath for four, before moving back to Devon to start their family nine years ago.
Adam said: “The opportunity arose to come back to Devon and become part of my father’s business, with a view to take it over one day. The timing was perfect as Victoria and I were planning to start a family.
“I grew up here myself, spending wonderful days in the countryside and on the beaches. It’s such a great place to be and an amazing place to bring up the children.
“Victoria also grew up in the countryside, near Winchester, and so loves the life style here too. Her parents moved down to Devon shortly after we did, so the children have all their grandparents near by, which is perfect.”
Adam and Victoria originally lived in Moreleigh while converting their barn on the outskirts of Dittisham. They moved into the beautifully hi-spec conversion, which Adam drew the architectural plans for, seven years ago.
The family live an idyllic, outdoor life with lots of walking, cycling and camping. Their children play lots of sport, including tennis, gymnastics and swimming.
Victoria and Adam have firm plans to stay in the area, even after the children grow up, although they do have thoughts about living in a remote cottage on Dartmoor for a while, after retirement of course.
Adam is now a director of the architectural practice founded some 35 years ago by his father. BBH Architects continues to operate from its Duke Street office in Dartmouth and there are now two directors, an office manager and eight staff, including architects, technicians and placement students – lots of people at various stages of the profession learning from each other.
Adam said: “We are a provincial practice and so work with a variety of residential properties, private developers and occasionally a wider range of public and commercial projects as they come along. As you can imagine, we have a fair share of coastal and waterfront properties with which we get involved, although we are always keen to support rural development where appropriate and work extensively on barn conversions, rural property refurbishments and agricultural buildings which will always be an important feature of our surrounding countryside.
We are proud to be able to support and assist rural areas in this way and have gained huge experience with local planning policy and skills in sensitive design and conservation over the years. Around 70/80 per cent of our work is, I suppose within a 30-mile radius, from Exeter to Plymouth and the South Hams in-between, but we are also keen to travel for work and keep abreast of opportunities throughout the South West, occasionally spreading further afield with completed projects in London, Bristol, Surrey and Dorset and so anything’s potentially possible in our minds.”
For more information on BBH Architects see www.bbharchitects.co.uk and to see Victoria’s Scribble Originals visit www.scribbleoriginal.com.
First Published August 2013 By The Dart