A day in the life of Grayson Perry

In the run up to his latest exhibition at Victoria Miro Gallery Grayson Perry, the artist best known as a Turner Prize-winning transvesite, potters around his studio and reveals his dressing-up boudoir, before taking Ossian Ward on a night out on the tiles at the re-opening of the V&A's ceramics gallery . Rob Greig takes the photographs.

10.41am
We arrive late at Grayson Perry's Walthamstow studio after navigating the delights of E17 and our photographer nearly getting mugged. We've missed the artist arriving on his motorbike but he's given us access to take pictures of whatever we want - except his wife's birthday present, 'Even my porn stash is fairly up-front', he says. Grayson is already hard at work sticking transfers of heads cut from Take a Break magazine onto his latest, as yet, untitled piece. 'This is the last pot I need to finish for my show at Victoria Miro. I'm preparing it for the fourth of five firings. I'm not sure whether I like it yet.'

In 1995 Perry called one of his pots, 'I Saw this Vase and Thought it Beautiful, Then I Looked at it.' Did he dislike that one particularly? 'That was a quote from one of my wife's relatives overheard at an exhibition of mine. The woman did a double take - first she saw a pretty vase and then found out it was covered in racist graffiti. That's how it's meant to work.' There is more than one layer to the so-called Turner Prize-winning transvestite potter too, who's currently dressed in plain overalls and geeky specs, discussing everything from medieval pilgrimage badges to sexism in comedy.

Does he ever worry that people will forget he's an artist? 'I always say that about Seamus Heaney, because a lot of people know who he is and that he won the Nobel Prize, but have they actually read any of his poems? I doubt it.' Hopefully a new glossy Thames & Hudson monograph will help school the general public on Perry's 30-year career as well as give insight into how an Essex boy came to have such leftfield leanings. 'People still think of me as the bloke who made those pots with paedophiles on, of which there were only a few, eight years ago. They might get a pleasant surprise when they see the book and how much I've done.'

After his newspaper column and award-winning TV documentary, 'Men Who Wear Frocks', Perry admits he's trying to curb his media-whoredom, despite having just appeared on Radio 4's 'Today' programme that morning. 'Although', he says, 'I've just said yes to "Have I got News for You?", which is slightly daunting. They either see me as a prime target or think I'm funny, I can't tell which.' He's clearly in demand for his witty banter and forthright opinions as much as for his cross-dressing and art making skills. As if on cue, the phone goes. 'Hulloo', he squeaks in theatrical high-pitch. 'Umm, oh. How did you get my number?' he says to the unwanted caller and yet another interruption to his day.

12.03pm
A knock at the door. The gallery is collecting a much larger pot, 'Jane Austen in E17', which is manoeuvred carefully out of an enormous kiln. 'A kiln is a good place if you need to get rid of someone,' says Perry, 'it's a bit smelly but all you end up with is a pile of ash.' There's lots of huffing and puffing to squeeze the lovely porcelain ladies in their full Georgian regalia into a padded wooden crate. For another of his new works, 'The Westfield Pot', which features the mega-mall's map delicately painted over a green glaze, Perry had to aim three blows with a sledgehammer before it finally broke. The vase was then glued back together, its cracks filled with gold as a testament to our damaging love of shopping.

'If Grayson Perry's exhibition at Victoria Miro Gallery has a theme it's branding and consumerism - the modern ill of shopping. But it's also about our age of information proliferation and the shit-storm of stuff we have to deal with now. I find it overwhelming and can't even bring myself to switch my mobile phone on. It's hard to stop for a moment and just think or feel. I have this fantasy about making my next piece almost as a recluse in the countryside or in monastic retreat from the world.'

While attempting to safely navigate a giant framed print down the narrow stairs, Grayson grunts, 'I must get one of those Antony Gormley studios - his one is like a branch of B&Q!' The load safely on, Perry breathes a sigh of relief, 'It's out of my hands. Now all I have to worry about is being mauled by the critics', he says to me, in a vaguely menacing voice. With that, we leave his studio for a late builder's breakfast at the nearby Lamb's café. 'I've been around here since 2001, but my old place is now under Zaha Hadid's Olympic swimming park. It's a well-documented process: the artists move in, then the trendies and then the estate agents. Won't happen to Walthamstow, though.'

2.45pm
There's just time to visit another local institution, Wakefield's (a treasure trove of an ironmongers), before stopping off at Victoria Miro Gallery to see the crowning glory of Perry's show, the 30-metre wide 'Walthamstow Tapestry', a stunningly woven womb-to-tomb procession of faintly autobiographical scenes, punctuated by hundreds of discreetly sewn-in brand names - Louis Vuitton, Pampers, Butlins, Lidl, Apple, Ford and so on. 'I call it "the Guernica of the credit-crunch" and it's my first piece of public art. I'd like to see it in the foyer of a public building, preferably a bank or a shopping centre.'

4.15pm
At home with Perry we're led into his alter-ego Claire's boudoir, complete with Dolly the doll, numerous frilly bonnets and a dressing table of accoutrements worthy of a Victorian lady. Choosing his evening attire to suit the gala re-opening of the V&A's ceramics gallery, he goes from the dress with the pottery sculpture over the crotch, 'too breezy', to the romper suit with the quilted pinafore, 'it's my Andy Pandy outfit!' Long wait in the pub while he becomes a she.

6.45pm
Arrive at the V&A with Perry's wife, Phillipa, who's no wallflower in her electrically-charged golden jacket. We all confess that we secretly liked the crummy old ceramics galleries with their forgotten wooden cabinets. 'I'm a bit of a fan of a dusty old museum,' says Perry. 'Whenever I hear the word regeneration I just think that every shop, restaurant and gallery is going to look the same - with a lot of glass and generic good taste.' However, the new displays are fantastic, even if Perry can't find his pot. 'One of the frustrations I have is that not a lot of my work is in public collections in this country, it's all gone into private hands. So people are aware of me in the media, but might not necessarily be aware of my work.' This lot certainly know who he is and while Grayson gets sucked into the throng he admits, 'I do like the hurly-burly of London. Some artists pooh-pooh it but I quite like the village green of the art world, with the annual Frieze Art Fair as its village fête.'

Grayson Perry's exhibition 'The Walthamstow Tapestry' is at Victoria Miro from Oct 9-Nov 7 2009. Jacky Klein's book 'Grayson Perry' is available from Thames & Hudson, priced £35.