BA honours 1994 Edinburgh College of Art. 2 1.

this is an a3 sketchbook that i did in my final year at ECA.. i don’t have much left from that time. However, this was my most successful work - from a distance of 30 years. the themes and processes explored (even unconsiously) that were evident then, has remained relevant up to the present time.

raising a family of four and running various design businesses in the intervening years have not diluted my core ideas and practice. Rasing a family of four has only distilled these, and the ideas of family, memory, life, survival and unknown histories are all present in both era’s work.

the obvious preoccupation with expressiveness and the traditionalist representativeness are still present in current work. however, I am more able to discern the disconnect between what is obvious to the viewer and what it is that drives me and the private questions I have . This is what I would like to explore more and try to understand this disconnect.

this particular sketchbook, it was particularly helpful to not be able to use these images in any meaningful public way, as the materials used and the book aspect and double sidedness meant they could not be displayed or even kept in museum conditions.. this freed up expression.

as the book progressed it became freer.. but i also started the other end with more traditional renditions. in my opinion, the most successful was… 12 and 17

the last image was a found page of accounting stationery from a linen mill that an ancestor owned near the places in the sketchbook. I’ve included this it was a precursor of my understanding of family histories and success and failures.

see current work here