This is called a hot water bottle belt and it’s not particularly effective but needs must in a chilly January studio - a cold but busy month, full of new ideas.

From my sketchbook...

I recently found a sketchbook I had lost for almost three years. Our reunion was such a relief and so affirming it reminded me how exciting I find the immediacy of these fast drawings in studios and kitchens. One of the lost sketches was this one from Cubitts spectacle workshop. It felt like something between a woodshop and a jeweller's with rows and rows of colourful, sweet-like acetate cut outs, sparks flying, glazers dripping, metal being bent and filed before the final gentle assembly of a pair of glasses. See more workshop drawings here

From my studio wall...

January’s painting from the studio wall is Chalk Factory, Still Life. My still lives are little tableaus of my thoughts. This one; something on petrification & stasis, on the relationship between our private worlds and the wider one, on coping. To see some moreof my still lives click here

Each new painting is made from the last. In the end I made a papîer-maché sculpture to re-solidify the ghost of the original pot of flowers. Chalk Factory, Still Life was painted from this sculpture.

The sculpture’s solidification felt like a petrification too; like something frozen in volcanic ash or the hulking tessellations of a cement factory - forms set against each other, like Morandi's pots - all blasted in the same sandy tone. Like whipped cream, or a stone carving - set and still.

Would you rather?...with Tom Bere of Troupe Wines

Would you rather dauphinoise or Jacket potato? Dauphinoise.

What recipe do you cook for your loved ones? I would just make a very simple but delicious spaghetti pomodoro. With lashings of olive oil, basil and salted ricotta. I think making comfort food shows love more than cooking something extravagant.

What do you cook when you’re sick? Spicy chicken and vermicelli noodle soup. With freshly sliced onion and coriander on top. Works every time.