Marj Bond

Artist

Favourite room: Garden room

We are in a little village in Fife and our house is facing the West Lomond Hill. The view is absolutely spectacular. I can sit on the couch and look out at it.

I come from Paisley, I'm a buddy. My husband and I met when I was living in Perth and running a gallery there.

We've been here for about 30 years. It's a very old house, a two up, two down, and when we moved in here it had a flat tin roof added on for the kitchen.

My husband is an architect and he was teaching architecture at Edinburgh College of Art at the time and he said: "I'm going to build an extension on to this that we can move around in." Because we are both quite tall, we wanted a room where we could both stand up in it.

He said: "I'll get the students to help". So the students came and helped us to build it, although they used to spend most of their time up at the local pub.

The room is a big space because being a cottage, the other rooms are quite small. You can see the exposed wall of the original cottage. On one side is the kitchen and the other half is our main lounge, which has a lovely wood-burning stove in it. The two halves are divided by a wooden structure across the middle.

We don't watch television in here. I sit and read, I do a lot of reading in here. I don't paint here though. My studio is elsewhere and nobody gets into my studio because it is such a mess.

Everybody loves this space. It has lots of light coming through. The roof is glass and high and it's extremely bright, it's lovely. I love the sense of space. Someone described it is as being like a Tardis, you come through the small doors of the cottage and then it opens up into this very light space.

There's a lot of wood in the room and the building, the actual structure, goes right down into the landscape. We are part of the surroundings. It has a very inside outside feeling. The vine makes you feel like that as well. A side door leads from here down to the garden.

There are so many things that I love in this room. It's very organic, we do move things around. I love to be surrounded by other artists' work. As the architect, James is part of my favourite things.

Headhunters' bag

James was brought up in India for about 14 years before coming to Britain, which sounds a bit posh. His father was in the medical service abroad and was originally posted in Burma, where he lived for many years and where he acquired this macabre headhunters' bag. It was a tradition in certain tribes to take and preserve the head of an enemy they had killed. We've had this bag forever, I love it to bits.

Taran

A long time ago when James was teaching in the art college, he and I went on a sabbatical to India for three months and this is one of the things we brought back with us. It's a metal sculpture and it's got wee bits where you can light candles. The women used to light it to welcome their menfolk back from the battles. It's a lovely thing. At Christmas time I hang candles on it and metal stars.

Bird canvas

I've collected a lot of art because I hate going into a house and finding nothing but the person's [own] paintings on the wall, it's so boring. This is a little canvas by my daughter Victoria Bond who lives on Mull. It was a gift to my husband, she painted it for him a couple of years ago.

Wooden sculpture

This wooden sculpture is by Matthew Reid who also lives on Mull and runs the community arts centre in Calgary. It stands against the wall and I light it up from behind. It is amazing. I bought it last year and I love it because it fits in so well to our home. It has really added to the space and looks good against the white wall. We've had many trips to Mull and we are going again later in the year and we are looking forward to that very much. There is the most amazing white beach at Calgary.

The Big Woman

I call this work by Jackie McNamee the Big Woman. I love her, she has such a presence. I dress her up at Christmas with flowers in her hair. If she's been naughty she can look so down in the mouth sometimes, she's very expressive. I've had that for years and I bought it from a gallery. It remember it being brought down the stairs; they had to carry it in two bits. It really suits the room.

James Gray vine

The vine has been there for six years and I call it James Gray's vine because it is his [my husband's]. It was a gift from a friend. The roots are planted outside and it has grown into the house. The grapes come and go. Sometimes we get them, sometimes we don't. Last year we got none at all, but we are hoping for some this year. It is a bit temperamental, like all of us.

* Marj Bond's new solo exhibition, Birds & Glyphs, features paintings and engravings based on her travels to India, Morocco, Spain and Cuba. It runs from May 15 to 30 at the RGI Kelly gallery, Glasgow. www.royalglasgowinstitute.org