Retrospective – Where it all began • Archive •2003/6

This is the first of a series of posts documenting the work I have made since 2002 when I started working as an artist after 28 year career designing womenswear.

Thornton Abbey Series
In 2002 I began working from a series of photographs of Thornton Abbey given to me by my friend Alf Ludlam who had visited the Abbey with his daughter, Lucy ,also a stitcher. She thought the photos would inspire me to start stitching again and they did. I later went to the Abbey and took my own photographs . The series of work I have produced is inspired by the beautiful tiles that have been preserved in the Abbey ruins and the gargoyles in and around the gatehouse.
The enormous fortified gatehouse of Thornton Abbey is among the finest surviving in Britain. It is an early example of brick building and was one of the wealthiest English Augustinian monasteries. Built in the years following the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 it provided lodgings for the abbot and his guests. Within its grounds stand the remains of the monastic buildings.

Self Portraits 2006 I made five self-portraits, one for each decade of my life at that time. The composition is based on Grant Wood’s American Gothic painting. I love the simplicity of the two figures in front of the distinctive Gothic window of the cottage. The painting shows a farmer standing beside his spinster daughter. The models were the artist’s dentist and sister.

The Wigwam portrays me with my sister, Jean during the 1950s. We are in our garden with our one-eyed cat, Tiddles outside our wigwam.

The Wigwam

The Holiday features me with best friend Olwen on holiday in Polperro, Cornwall in 1967.

The Holiday

The Wedding shows me with my husband, David on our wedding day in 1975. Unfortunately no photographs exist of the event so it is done from my own memory of the day.