I moved to Glasgow in February 2006 to start a showroom cum salon for art and design. I knew three people. All it took was for one, particularly active in the local art scene, to listen to my business idea and find it interesting. He introduced me to like-minded people and things began to happen. This is how I was welcomed into Glasgow’s infamous artists’ network, the Chateau.

The Chateau was born in the same way that life springs from seemingly sleepy waters. Glasgow was teeming with buzzing creatives, strong social and art school networks, idealism and the love of the party. Not your average pond life, the Chateau crew took their destiny in hand and put on fresh and unpretentious gigs, films, and themed multi-disciplinary exhibitions. The critics, the media and the local authorities stood agog.

As the years passed, the Chateau evolved from spontaneous to studio space to events in Glasgow and beyond. Many contributors such as Franz Ferdinand and Sons and Daughters found musical success. Curators such as Sorcha Dallas opened their own galleries. Others founded environmental, technological and design enterprises. Almost impossible to define, in 2006 the creative amoeba known as the Chateau was still very much alive.

Hence, the Chateau felt like the perfect venue to test my concept. After an intense six weeks of clearing, plumbing and lighting, I had myself a 250-square-meter space reminiscent of Warhol’s Factory, complete with exposed brick, rusty beams and a wood-panelled parlour.

Friends, many of them new Glasgow ones, pitched in immensely in pulling it all together. I couldn’t have done it without them. I had no budget and had grossly underestimated the work required. We worked nights and weekends, putting up wallpaper with bottles of Stella.

Luckily the artists and designers had responded just as enthusiastically to my call for submissions. My committee and I selected the best works from local fashion, textile, jewellery and accessory designers to display alongside fine art. We used anything we could find for the displays: scaffolding, tree branches, clotheslines, fishing nets, ladders and harem tents. I wanted to create an eccentric but homey loft wonderland full of new and old treasures… I succeeded.

I was constantly cooking up events and attractions to get customers from the centre of town to our rough neighbourhood. We put on gigs, clothes swaps, sew downs, 3D fashion shows, films and electronic magazines. Even after locating the shop, visitors still had to buzz my anonymous buzzer [provided it hadn’t been vandalised by the newsagent downstairs], and trek up three flights of stairs past rusting equipment… But still, they came to see us.

We were open every weekend and there wasn’t a day when no one came. The gasp of surprise, when they walked through the door, made up for all the time we spent waiting for the buzzer to ring.

Since our launch a year ago, we have moved into a storefront in town. Launched as part of the Scottish Design Festival, the interior and its contents have all been specially designed for us. We now count a growing number of younger fans as part of our audience, taking it all in and volunteering to model, film, photograph and help out. Now they are joining us as apprentices – later they will carry on what we started.

A year and a half on, I am learning to live like a true Glaswegian. I even have a Glaswegian fiancé. He is teaching me key phrases. We practice my Glaswegian accent by me parroting back, ‘gees yer haun’ [give me your hand]… Not something I’m willing to try publicly yet.

I am learning to love Buckfast and appreciate bonfires by the Clyde. I suffer through dark damp winters in anticipation of twenty-one hours of daylight in summer.

I have now conceded that ‘real men’ must be able to finish a fight, a pint and a joke properly. I know not to panic when I hear “FUK’N SHITE!”

Dilapidated buildings now make me pause and wonder if anyone is working away inside. I have a sincere affection for the potential secrets of such buildings, with all their ghosts and leaks and moments spent working there with friends.

Glasgow reminds me very much of the New York of my childhood: dirty, glamorous, dangerous, seething with talent and life.

Life elsewhere seems impossibly dull.