Cloth, thread, paper, biro, oil pastel, acrylic paint, ink, pva
23 x 24cm, unframed
When I left art college, there was no parental (or otherwise) car to haul my belongings home, so I cut up whatever artwork I could carry and ditched the rest. One such piece, of which I have no photo (couldn’t afford a camera, luckily) was large and red and boringly predictable. I made it in ’89, then chopped it up, stuffed it in an envelope, and lugged it north on the National Express Coach from Victoria Station. And there it sat, forgotten until 2021 when Mam died and we cleared out the attic.
Sometime between 2021 and 2023, I took those already-cut pieces, chopped them even smaller, and stitched them onto some yellow-and-blue striped fabric, which was also in the attic, and of which I have no memories. I didn’t finish it for the usual time-poor reasons, shoved it aside, and forgot about it again.
Fast forward to last Christmas/New Year. I was in a panic about what to show at the Barbican Library exhibition. I dug it out, and salvaged a tiny corner. As it turned out, there wasn’t enough space in the library to show it.
Anyway, it’s me (biro portrait by my daughter c2006), standing in front of the wall (bricks made from that degree show piece) I hit after college. That’s the wall you can only climb with money and connections. So, on account of having no connections or a money-safety-net to pay the bills and rent, I worked full-time on the wrong side of the wall. I didn’t start making art again, except in my head, until maternity leave ten years later.
That was twenty-six years ago, and since then I’ve learned to take what I can get, even ten minutes in the kitchen, instead of waiting for the luxury of a studio or a free afternoon. I’d rather it didn’t, but I’ve accepted that my art has to live alongside low-paying day-jobs. Five minutes here, thirty minutes there… they all add up. And when you grab those scraps of time, they become something surprisingly substantial.
Copyright: Alison Aye, 2025.
