The text messages arrive first. A bridge is closed near Florence Pugh’s house! The traffic in London is thick! It’s a right old bugger! She is en route but might be a little late! She is so sorry! She’s been in the car for an hour! She’s technically at the address but can’t find the entrance! And then there she is, Florence Pugh - 27, already Oscar-nominated and critically lauded beyond an actor’s wildest dreams looking as though she is exactly where she’s meant to be.
In fairness to Pugh, I have chosen one of East London’s most rabbit warren-like warehouses for our meeting point. It’s here that Ana Kerin has her pottery studio Kana, where Pugh and I will spend the morning getting to grips with a mound of clay.
”It’s a maze,“ the artist apologises, each turn revealing another layer of corridors, like an MC Escher painting but with more house plants. On every corner, items have been left outside various other studios to find a new creative home, or so the ”Help yourself“ signs say. ”What am I helping myself to?“ jokes Pugh with her raspy, spitfire cackle. (A terrifying headless mannequin; a tall, ridged, charcoal … pot?) Her arms are full. She’s already juggling a thermos, a giant iPhone and a coffee but her bright green eyes are attuned to every possibility. She takes everything in.
Inside Kerin’s studio, Pugh removes her rings with the studied practice of someone relocated to Australia instead of Spain. Pugh was just two, but she vividly remembers the family travelling to Sydney, where she used a bucket to clear an ocean pool of bluebottles. ”I remember the water was up to here,“ she says, hand at her neck.) ”For Christmas, we’d get massive bits of paper to sketch on,“ Pugh recalls. ”I think he was always trying to keep us inspired.“
