My first imaginary friend was a bluebird, directly lifted from a favourite storybook, with the power of speech and flight, much needed in large families. Another was a baby although I had a baby sister. This imaginary one was … Read More
In 1971 I was a teenager raging at the front door and sneaking in by the back door. I caught buses in dark bus stations and lived near owly fields and lanes. I took lifts, to stretch out moment between … Read More
NICK’S GIFT Review by Paul Green Becky Nuttall’s first collection is a delight to read. The poems range from vivid but unsentimental epiphanies of a sixties childhood to powerful evocations of a seventies adolescence in all its … Read More
I inherited my father’s art school portfollio, letters written to his closest friend, poems, lists and journals. I have the lovely poems he wrote for me, his funny postcards and random letters. I have disposed of … Read More
Conceptualism was the only theory available at my art school in 1973. Found objects, post modern irony and an ability to not stick around too long with an idea were highly marked. A desire to paint like Turner was … Read More
The White Horses of Tarquinia In 1966 we spent a summer in Italy; one quest was to find the white horses of Tarquinia. It became a bit of a mission. I have now found out they were … Read More
He liked boys, he kissed me anyway. I had the taste of two lipsticks in my mouth, his named peachy pink and mine fuchsia gloss. Baby blue, shimmer cream, I blushed. Willingly I would’ve shed my clothes for him … Read More
Once I was a young artist raised in the sixties and living the seventies. To the art school came the man raised in the twenties and living the Reformation; he is the assessor. He sallies forth into the studio and … Read More
On a bedroom wall in our house was a reproduction of Harlequinade. Harlequin and Columbine playing out their pantomime amidst twirls, slapstick, dogs, pursued by Pantaloon and Pierrot My father also pinned up a picture of Picasso’s Child with a … Read More
My mother, Jenny, was a sun worshipper. She was born in Lyme Regis and although she went to London to find work, she came back with my father to the South West and Brixham to open Milton Head … Read More
When I begin another artwork I initially spend days researching, mapping and merging all the influences that will bring the piece together into a coherent (to me anyway) theme. Alice follows my theme of adolescents wearing the clothes of … Read More
The Irish nuns in our convent favoured the term of abuse ‘ridiculous’ or ‘ridiccaless’ in their vernacular. ‘Don’t be ridiculous Rebecca’ when I questioned anything outside their dogma, tradition or values. Not being a Catholic, and having arty parents, I … Read More