Five years ago when I stopped teaching full time and began to feel I might possibly be able to have time to think about art, I had absolutely no idea where my thoughts might lead me. The experience of having this kind of space was really quite daunting. My entire life had been regulated by timetables, government initiatives and learning outcomes, by the feeling that if I didn’t spend every evening and Sunday in the classroom preparing I would not be doing my job properly. It takes time to unwind and allow your thoughts to develop along different lines.

My mother used to tell me stories about the family to keep me from wriggling as she dried my hair in front of the fire and I promised myself that, when I had time and space, I would explore those stories, unravel the family history and search out the truth or otherwise of her tales. I became an amateur detective, piecing together the fragments from many different sources to make a narrative. This patient and absorbing research had an extra and unexpected outcome. I unlocked a train of thought, found a subject for art, and in this way began an ongoing meditation and debate with myself about the lives of women in my family, about my own life and about the changes over the last hundred, hundred and fifty years and the gains and losses of our present position.

My first piece was made as a tribute to my grandmother, a quiet presence in the background providing a balance to my rather flamboyant grandfather. Scones, porridge and good food flowed from a kitchen lacking hot water other than that provided by a kettle. Socks, knitwear and rugs grew in her capable hands. It was only after I researched her life, learning that her mother died of tetanus when she was five, that she was sent to an aunt in a remote part of the Scottish highlands to be brought up, that after marrying my grandfather she set off for South America with no knowledge of her destination, no Spanish and two very small children, that my admiration for her resilience and qualities of endurance provided the idea for a sculpture. While thinking about it I came across the story of Lady Mary Bankes who held Corfe Castle against the Parliamentary forces for three years, throwing burning coals on the heads of her enemies to keep them out. When she surrendered they gave her back the keys of the castle as a tribute to her bravery. Then they blew the castle to pieces anyway!

These two women, very disparate in time and station of life, started the thinking that led to a sculpture. I wanted to make it in stone but had to compromise with plaster after an abortive attempt to use resin. The piece is called Chatelaine 2 (being the second attempt) and it’s meant to celebrate the resilience of women everywhere who “hold the fort” in difficult circumstances.



I have always been a maker. What excited me and kept me awake as a small child was planning what I was going to make. It’s still the case. After I finished Chatelaine I began to think about the making process as it used to happen, a slow steady dogged process by the fire on winter evenings and how this tradition of working is being lost, as we slump in front of television in exhaustion. It seems to me symptomatic of the erosion of family life. My grandmother, in knitting us socks, somehow knitted the family together. I decided to use where possible a traditional making process in my work, finding as I did so that the making and the thinking somehow intertwined so that the more I made the more the thought processes flowed. Some of my work after this point (though not all) has been made using materials and methods that are traditionally female. All of it explores different aspects of being a woman.

I was lucky enough to spot in Artist’s Newsletter an advertisement for the AA2A scheme which allows practising artists to use the workshops and facilities of participating Art Colleges to progress their work. I applied to Portsmouth and was accepted onto the scheme. I then spent a day a week on average at Portsmouth and, at the end of the six months was able to share an exhibition with others on the scheme. This residency gave me the time and space to progress ideas and during the time I was there I made several pieces.

There is not the space to show everything I made but two pieces will give some idea of the work.

The first is called “Accessories” and it was made because I felt so angry at the stories of celebrities like Madonna and Angelina Jolie going to the third world and helping themselves to token babies. I’ve also noticed a tendency these days for people to have children as if they are a fashion statement, without seeming to understand the level of commitment required. I made the handbag at home, the chain in the small metal workshop and the wax babies in the ceramic studio at Portsmouth.

The second piece was inspired by Berber women, who handle merchandising and finance, bring up the children , cook, clean, and, in addition, make the tent. I rashly decided to make a tent and to do it in a traditional and time-consuming way by plaiting and stitching together used and discarded pieces of material. Starting in the autumn in front of the fire it took many months and was never completed. I spent as much time as I could during the last two weeks of the residency making it in the foyer of the art school where the comments of passers-by became, for me, part of the piece.

As I said before this last construction is still work in progress, but then “women’s work is never done”! I think maybe I’ve also discovered a theme that will run and run.