Episode 59 | Style & Substance | September 22, 2026

Sep 22

Martin Bourne

Show Notes: Prop stylist, gardener, ceramicist, textile designer — these are just some of the many hats Martin Bourne wears in his creative life. In this episode he shares the story of his upbringing in bucolic Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom, how he complemented a natural talent for design with various academic pursuits, and how he stumbled into his first styling jobs — not yet knowing that "prop stylist" was even a career.

Before leaving the UK for New York City, Martin worked for Elle Decor and was recruited to produce interior design stories for Tyler Brûlé's influential new magazine Wallpaper*. A friend in New York eventually convinced him to visit, and he soon found himself picking up freelance styling work. He's been in the U.S. for more than 20 years now, with a home in upstate New York where he pursues his other great passion: gardening.

During the COVID era, the pressure to reinvent was felt across the creative community — how to keep making work under the constraints of home confinement became the central challenge. For Martin, this led to a collaboration with photographer (and upstate neighbor) Patricia Heal. Together they experimented with creating still life images, even producing stories shot inside a chicken coop. That inventive spirit carried forward into something unexpected: the backdrops and vessels he created have since evolved into textile and ceramic product lines soon to be seen in the Dobrinka Salzman Gallery in NYC.

It's a life lived in perpetual creative motion — experimenting, collaborating, and making beautiful things almost as a byproduct of simply following curiosity wherever it leads.