Kate MccGwire, artist: 'You have to be organised to work on a boat. Or you would be in a sea of pigeon'

Karen Wright meets the arist at her studio on a Dutch barge moored in the Thames near Hampton Court

Quills and spills: Kate MccGwire in her studio on a barge on the Thames near Hampton Court (David Sandison)

Kate MccGwire works on the Barton B, a Dutch barge moored in the Thames near Hampton Court. I have been to many different types of studios: big and small, urban and rural, but never before to one on a boat. To add to the romance the boat is moored on an island that is close to London but it might as well be a million miles away. The island was a medieval willow bed before it became the site for factories that built torpedo boats during the Second World War, with women in charge of most of the production.

MccGwire's studio is as unusual as her practice. For her degree show, at the Royal College of Art, she made an installation from wishbones purchased from chicken suppliers to Chinese restaurants. She had to boil and clean the flesh away herself. "I use things that are impossible to buy," she says simply. She got a distinctionfor that work, Charles Saatchi bought it and it is still in his collection.

Turning her attention to feathers, she first started picking them up herself before contacting racing pigeon clubs and their members, who send her the feathers from their moulting birds. "I send them a stamped addressed envelope. I offer to pay and they say – do not be ridiculous, they would be throwing them out anyway."

She shows me an envelope that arrived today, opening it to reveal its fluffy contents. "I particularly like the grey ones. Although it will take about two years before I have enough to make one piece." She meticulously keeps all of the letters and envelopes and intends to use them for an installation in the future.

The feathers are carefully sorted by her and a group of locally recruited women who trim them and categorise them by size and colour. She stores them in plastic boxes of different hues. "Then I have a palette and I can pick them up really easily and trim them."

There are unique challenges to working in such a confined space. "You have to be organised to work on a boat," she says. "Or you would be in a sea of pigeon." The doors are narrow and the work needs to be transported via a smaller boat to the mainland. During the floods last year she had to trudge through a metre of water to reach the boat.

MccGwire was born on the Norfolk Broads into a family familiar with boats. She remembers calling her father when she found the barge and him telling her, "Don't be stupid." She persuaded him to come and look at it and his reaction was instant: "Buy it." Our conversation is punctuated by bird song – it is clearly the very best place for her to work.

Kate MccGwire's work can be seen in Glasstress 2015: Gotika at the Venice Biennale until 22 November (www.glasstress.org)