Blueprint for a Happy Relationship

6.05.07

Janice Kirkpatrick, 45, and Ross Hunter, 45, met while studying at Glasgow School of Art in 1980, got together in 1983 and started their design consultancy, Graven Images, in 1986. The practice has been selected to feature in the Scottish Show 07, the centrepiece of the Six Cities design festival, which is running at the Lighthouse, Glasgow, from May 17.

Janice Kirkpatrick
Ross shared a room in the halls of residence with the only person I knew who was from Dumfries, a guy called Brian Smith, so I suppose I first met him in his bedroom. We were all living in student accommodation located in a former cancer hospital with a morgue in the basement and extra-strong lifts to take the coffins — it was charming. Ross was an architect, as was his father before him, and they were always a bit different, more middle class than the rest of the art school.

I was doing graphic design and, to be honest, nothing prepared me for the enormous culture shock of Glasgow in 1980 at the height of the new-romantic thing. But you know how these things go. We became friends and went drinking in the Griffin. Nobody fancied anybody, though, we were mates. And we both worked really hard, I remember that.

In 1983, he went off to do a placement in Los Angeles and when he came back we talked about going to the tartan and leather party, one of the many themed events held in the art school assembly hall. It wasn’t a date exactly, but it’s fair to say that by that time we were both quite keen for something to happen. We spent the night with friends, drinking and telling jokes in a cleaners’ cupboard, of all places, and finally got it together later that evening. When it came to starting the business, in 1986, we gave ourselves three years. We wanted to prove that a cross-disciplinary design business could work from Glasgow in the same way that it does from Milan or wherever, and we have done. Ross’s vision is so integral to that. He can see odd things and move them into different contexts and really make them work in a way nobody else would have imagined. He’s a very clever guy, really.

You’ve perhaps gathered that I’m not romantic or soppy. I hate chick lit and those daft female films — in fact Ross is ore your man there. For me, love isn’t about floating around in gauzy dresses and getting chocolates on Valentine’s Day. It’s about being with someone who is there when you need them, for real stuff. And for me, Ross is.

Ross Hunter
It took us a while to get together, yes, but that was more due to poor organisation and a lack of opportunity than any reluctance on my part. I do remember her coming don into my room, but it wasn’t love at first sight. Of course, I quite fancied her, but that doesn’t mean anything’s going to happen, does it? Not at that age, anyway.

We got together at the party, held around Hallowe’en as I recall, and we were a pair from then on. Ii remember one of my friends asking me if I was in love with her and that was definitely around Christmas time. My answer? Uh-huh, yeah s’pose so.

I was living in the kind of art school flat that still figures in my dreams to this day, in Hill Street, Garnethill. Magnificent cockroaches, mice under the cooker and a butcher’s shop down below. Moving in was a fairly blurry process, but we did in the end.

When we graduated, we were confident, almost arrogant, with regard to Graven Images. We really thought that we’d seen something that nobody else yet understood about design, that things could be created and made in Scotland, that common sense could be applied. Janice and I were on a mission — we still are in some ways.

We’ve never got married. In our younger and, dare I say it, more political days, it was a statement almost. What had the church and state to do with our relationship? Plus Janice isn’t really a big-white-dress kind of a woman. We never got round to having children wither. They just didn’t loom large for us.

I’m very lucky to have met someone like Janice. She’s prepared to be rude and funny and she likes doing the things I do. It’s great to have a girlfriend who likes motorbikes and going to the pub and who will even watch football. I realise I’m not making this sound very romantic. What else? She’s a good worker, very strong, good at heavy lifting … what, I’m making it worse? Oh I don’t know, I just love her.

We were spending the weekends tearing off into the country on our motorbikes and we’d come back on the Sunday evenings and talk about getting away again. So in the end we moved out of the city to a place in Ayrshire. We’re up at 5.30am every morning to feed the hens and the geese and we’re very happy there.

Now I dig holes and Janice plants stuff. It sounds boring, doesn’t it? But the thing is, I like digging holes and she likes planting stuff, so it’s ideal, really, for the two of us.