Louise Toft runs the operations side of her sister Sam Toft’s art business, packing prints from her light-filled studio at Pixel. She also works as a life coach and is gradually shaping her space into a place for conversation and creativity—often with her mum or daughter dropping by to lend a hand.
Louise, could you start by telling us what you do here?
The main thing I’m doing here at the moment is helping run the family online business. My sister is the artist Sam Toft, so I pack her prints from here. My mum used to run the operations side before I took over—she worked in her converted garage but at 84 she’s finally decided to retire.
I’m also a life coach, so I want to get people on my chaise longue at some point. I’m thinking about using the other half of the space for that.
Interesting! Does your sister paint here too? Because it all seems very clean.
No, my sister’s in Brighton, but she’ll come and do bits and bobs. She does remarquing on the prints—these little original sketches over the prints. She also does meet and greets and little sketches of people’s dogs.
So what brought you to Pixel?
Well, I was going to do it from my spare bedroom at home, but I put a shout out on a WhatsApp group asking if anyone knew of any nice creative spaces and someone suggested Pixel. I thought, “Ohh, what’s this?”
It’s been a breath of fresh air, really. The more I heard about it and experienced it, I just thought it’s a lovely space to be in with all these creatives. It’s quite inspiring. I just come here sometimes to hang out.
How have you found the community here?
Because a lot of my work is on my own, either packing or with a client, it’s just so nice to be around people, and they’re all so lovely. Maisie and Polly from Forward Space put on some amazing events.
It’s interesting because I’m a bit more introverted than extroverted, so I don’t usually like people just popping in, but people have been visiting and I haven’t minded it. It’s funny. I’m assertive enough to say, “Oh no, now’s not a good time.” And if I do want privacy, those screens just pull straight across. When I’ve got clients here I’ll put frosting in the window, but at the moment I’ve enjoyed it.
Have you thought about collaborating with anyone?
I did put a little bee in Poppy Treffry’s ear about doing a collaboration. I think you’ve met Richie, who I find very inspiring—I’d like to talk to him about doing things online for my coaching business because he’s good at all that stuff.
Just yesterday Viv the hairdresser said, “Can I have a look at your space?” And then I was sitting here thinking it’s my sister’s birthday, I should get her a nice card so I popped up to see Poppy and had a look around her beautiful studio.
And what were your first impressions of the building in general?
My sense of it was, “What a wonderful thing to bring to Penzance.” I don’t know if Forward Space does this with their other spaces, but the fact that this is all creators—it’s called the community of creators—it’s just lovely. My daughter, who’s 19 and just finished college, comes here. She said, “I just wanna go for the vibe, mum.”
I don’t know many Penzance people, but somebody said something about this building on Facebook: “Ohh, that blooming building. It’s completely empty. What has the Council spent all that money on?” I just commented and said, “Hey! There’s lots of lovely people in that building.” And then he said, “Oh thank you. I didn’t realise that.”
We know there’s a lot of momentum in the town at the moment, do you see this a new era for Penzance?
It’s interesting because I’ve been around here for about 20-odd years now and seen Penzance declining—there’s a lot of empty shops. But just recently this street, Causeway Head, has lots of independent shops now.
Mum comes and still helps with the packing, and she was walking down here and said, “Isn’t it lovely how it’s regenerated? Particularly Causeway Head, lots of independent shops that are just a bit different.”
Do you think places like this help to show younger people that creative careers are an option?
My daughter—bless her—she’s unsure what to do next and just being around these people and interacting with them, she’s really getting inspired. So it’s just lovely.
I think Richie talks about that in one of his videos, doesn’t he? Bringing young people in. And he does bring young people in. The BBQ we had on the patio was lovely—we had little kiddies running around. That’s another thing I find—it’s very inviting and welcoming to children and dogs. It’s lovely seeing the dogs.
Brilliant, thank you, Louise. I can see why your daughter loves the vibe here too.
