What ever the weather …

From a lonely, isolated place as a 6-year-old girl, I was able create beauty, fashion and even theatre with waste materials. Fast forward … In isolation due to COVID and away from university life I also had to find ways to be creative.  My home now far more comfortable and materials and tools were readily available. Yet, my mind went back to the dark and lonely a default situation, where the weather, tide and seasons were a constant back drop.  My mother was a hard master, I was responsible for collecting driftwood for the fire from the foreshore when the tide turned.  After that there was fresh water to fetch from the standpipe a mile or so away and the weekly shop in the village much further away.  I was exposed to harshness, reality, and weather. My clothes were functional, seasonal, handmade, and hand me down. I learned to knit, stitch, darn, and repair.  My home life was not about be a boy or a girl, I was taught survival, doing what needed to be done, being what I needed to be.  I had to be aware of the weather and the condition at present, I did not imagine the future beyond my immediate environment.  My glossy magazines and comics did give me a glimmer of something else and a hope that things might get better. Long before saving the environment became norm my parents warned me of materialism and capitalism, so there was always a sense of environmental care, making do and manding was instilled and remains my method and the core of my practice.