“Welcome to my brand new Islington studio! We used to walk past here 20 years ago and think, ‘Wow, this would make a wonderful studio’. And now I’ve got it.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“The building was originally used as a watch factory, and you can still see signs of the belt-driven machinery. The next company here made decorative plaster moulding for theatres, and it was finally a small metal workshop. After that, it was used as a film set. With pale green, flaking paint, it was perfect for period drama murder scenes…”

© Eamonn McCabe

“I do feel slightly embarrassed here. It feels like one of those YBA studios: they always have perfect white industrial studios. I’m not complaining though. Moving here has been the biggest change in my life – my work rate has gone up hugely. In Walthamstow I had to go home by four as it was simply too cold. Even here though, I swear by cashmere socks from November all the way through to about April.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“We had to hire cranes and knock down the front door to get these kilns out of my last studio. A man was walking past pushing a buggy and asked what was going on. So I told him I was moving to a new studio. ‘Oh, it’s a sad day for Walthamstow,’ he said. Artists are the shock troops of gentrification, and Walthamstow is well on the way. ‘My work here is done,’ I told him!”

© Eamonn McCabe

“The woman on top of the red kiln is my kiln goddess. Alan Measles got co-opted to look after the second one.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“For the tapestries, I start with a full-scale drawing and then use this to design them. I work with a production company called Factum Arte, who sent their Photoshop expert here for two days to give me a crash course. What’s brilliant about it is that everything is contingent. Unlike real things, you can always go back to the beginning and start again.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“This is Kate Fox’s Watching the English. I love this book, it’s my Bible. Every time I meet a foreigner thinking of moving here I tell them to read it.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“I’m always referring to lots of different sources – my books are primary in my work. The green tile in front of these ones is a sketch for the Essex House that I’m doing with FAT and Living Architecture. They’re going to be giant!”

© Eamonn McCabe

“These terracotta stamps on the second shelf down are used for logos and other repeat images on my pottery. One of the first I made was a stamp of a hell’s angel. I’ve got thousands of them now.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“I use the magnifying glass to carve them.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“That’s one of my Tate Modern reliquaries hanging from the beams – it’s a piece of broken pot. You can buy it from their gift shop if you like.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“That cushion is ancient and full of pottery dust. There’s something of the little old lady in her conservatory about it.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“I’ve never owned a car. Bikes have always been part of my identity. Trannies do tend to overcompensate by doing very macho stuff. I’m getting to an age now where I’m thinking of buying a car – probably a red sports car, something exotic and embarrassing. ”

© Eamonn McCabe

“These leathers are the first thing I ever had specially made, when I was 29. I look at them now like the skin of my younger body. I could probably squeeze into them now, like some kind of middle-aged sausage.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“I bought this from Rachel Choi’s student fashion show. It weighs a tonne: clearly, an awful lot of artificial fibres have gone into it! It might be the most bonkers thing I own.”

© Eamonn McCabe

Embroidered silk brocade, leather, printed linen and ceramic buttons. 179 x 70 cm. Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro, London © Grayson Perry.

Glazed ceramic. Height 78.5 cm, diameter 40.7 cm. British Museum Collection. Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro, London © Grayson Perry.

52 cm x 32 cm. Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro, London © Grayson Perry.

Glazed ceramic. 52 cm x 32 cm. Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro, London © Grayson Perry.

Wool, cotton, acrylic, polyester and silk tapestry. 200 x 400 cm. Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro, London © Grayson Perry.

Wool and cotton tapestry woven by Flanders Tapestries from files prepared at Factum Arte. 290 x 690 cm. Courtesy the Artist and Paragon Press, London © Grayson Perry.