In my current work I am exploring a theme to which I have given the title "Woman's Place". This train of thought began with an interest in genealogy and, in looking at the lives of women in my family's past, I started to wonder about the qualities that enabled them to cope with poverty, enormous families and absent men. I looked at the changes in my own lifetime and the lifetime of my parents and began a debate with myself about how woman's role has changed, whether we are better or worse off as a result and what the resulting impact is on families. I started thinking about what it means and meant to be female and tried to weigh up the gains and losses of our current position.
This is a highly personal, sometimes autobiographical journey, but the theme has, I believe, universal relevance. There is a dichotomy in all our lives as women, as we struggle to balance the powerful and demanding role of shaping families with our need to compete in a demanding and increasingly intrusive society, which undervalues the importance of this role.
In the work I have made and am currently making I have employed modelling, casting, carving, printmaking and, where appropriate, techniques traditionally used by women such as knitting, sewing, piecing, quilting, sometimes using familiar, sometimes unlikely materials to make 2 and 3D pieces.