sometimes it is only later that I can look back and see why I did a picture and what it meant to me at the time. My first exhibition was full of pictures like that. Lost and lonely characters populated strange landscapes and looked helplessly out of the picture searching for something but they didn’t know what.
I didn’t know what I was looking for at the time either. I thought it was a boyfriend probably, someone to love me when I couldn’t love myself and avoided relationships. Lucy is me and the dog is me, I am running away from my own inner dog, the part the unconditionally adores me for me and will gaze in my direction with big round eyes. Dog owners know exactly what I am talking about.
Of course I didn’t realise this at the time, I just knew I was unhappy and painting the pictures and doing the embroideries was a way of getting it out in the open because my natural state was secrecy and I needed practice in being open with the world. I look back on those pictures now and there were a few I am still happy with and a few I see where they lack finish but at the time they were perfect and doing an exhibition and putting them out in the open for the public to see them was the best medicine ever.
