seeing the humanity and joy in our everyday
I remember the first time I tried icing on a cake. I was 24 years old and had recently started working at the YMCA.
Continue reading “Iced Christmas Cake”
A Christmas jumper is ‘a top pulled over the head to cover the torso, themed with a Christmas or winter-style design.’ Save the Children UK encourage people to wear a Christmas jumper on a specific day in December (it’s the 14th this year) and raise money for the charity. Most people wear Christmas jumpers outside of that one day, during Advent and Christmas.
I had with me one photo album, one diary, pens, a couple of books, a Walkman (do you remember those?), my university diploma and a very small wardrobe of mainly tops and bottoms. The only pair of shoes I had thought of taking was on me and it lasted a whole year. I still retain wonderful memories – my best ever shoes!
I had met him on messenger. People still ask me how I had the patience. I am a patient person, when I know it is worth it in the end. Task-oriented, that is what they call me.
I prefer to be hands-on and take pictures, and yet I really enjoyed walking around the galleries and reading the photographers’ biographies as well as the story behind each image. I found myself going home to research some of the artists in the gallery, their photographic style and their own personal story. I could feel passion for photography coming back to me.
‘So I’m supposed to tell you my story, no guidelines… That’s going to be hard! I do not know where to start.
My father passed away when I was ten years old and I was brought up by my mum and my two older sisters. They moved out of home and I went into boarding school for a while. My father had been my best friend. Continue reading “On the artist”
‘There was also a young kid there, sleeping rough, like me. I remember he was about sixteen, seventeen.
And we hung out together and I was just nineteen, twenty at that stage, and what I did was I took him to the Tate Modern and we spent two days. And then because of my art background, I shared like, I wanted to show him Rothko and you know, explained it all to him, and actually he started saying to me he wanted to become an artist and get off the streets. Continue reading “On Art”