I am a grandmother, artist and lay reader and realise I have lived longer in Saltburn than in Egham, the town of my birth, but still feel southern. I finished my Fine Art Degree in 2012
For the past two yeas I have been working, by kind permission of the National Trust at Ormesby Hall Middlesbrough, visually investigating the objects in the laundry and kitchen. I have been especially fascinated by the flat irons and as the nations' thoughts turned to the centenary of the First World War, mine did too. I thought about, how, as the men went off to the Front the women were left to their usual domestic routines
Working in the servants' quarters I have become aware of how this service class supported the industrial and cultural progress of the time..The work I have done is a response to the social and spiritual heritage of Ormesby Hall.
Focussing on these objects has led me to think of the hands once placed on them, the lives of the people who worked with them and how, these everyday items can connect us with lives lived and lost.