As the show at the Nunnery Gallery ends I feel I have been very privileged to receive such appreciative comments from a wide range of people. Perhaps most moving of all has been the reaction of pupils from local schools studying their immediate environment with fresh eyes.

 

I was saddened growing up as I watched familiar environments disappear and morph into something with less character. For instance, my dad and my grandad shared an allotment near our terraced streets where they would keep chickens and grew tomatoes and chrysanthemums. This all came to an abrupt end when the allotments and the ‘Lanes’, as the interconnecting paths between them were called, were demolished to make way for a secondary school. I mourned their loss and the sense of possibility for adventure they had created in earlier years.

 

Above is a drawing of the school that replaced the allotments, executed when I was fourteen. It was not quite ‘spreadsheet architecture’ but fairly anonymous when compared to the sheds, winding paths, flowers, wild strawberries and blackberries all lying in wait to be discovered, according to the season.

 

At school I was extremely fortunate in my art teacher, Mr. Hanford who had been taught at the Royal Academy and who made me aware of drawing and painting. He also gave me an insight into the history of western art and I still abide by some of what he instilled in me. The educational environment was a girls’ grammar school where I felt I had to conceal my background from the other girls who, in the main came from professional homes. Conversely, in my home streets I was always the girl who attended the ‘other school’ and wore the fancy uniform. I think this may have played a role in making me stand at a reserved distance, looking on and observing.

 

I rated classrooms according to the prints hanging on their walls. At the age of 11, during interminable maths lessons I used to spend hours gazing at and dreaming about ‘The Hunters in Snow’ by Brueghel. I disliked Courbet’s painting of the ‘Wounded Stag’, and found Monet’s ‘Poppy Field’ a bit too sugary. I adored the orange colour in Matisse’s ‘Goldfish Bowl’.

 

At home we didn’t have abundant access to art or books, although my parents were generous in supplying me with the books I wanted, so I was influenced initially by whatever I came across. Methodism was very strong in the community, the virtues of work and placing the concerns of others before oneself were considered paramount, and although my family were not religious, we were imbued with a culture of self discipline. I remember, that by the age of eight, I was taking responsibility in the household for reading and writing to help my parents who only had a very preliminary education and were at best semi-literate.