“Magical folklore and history inspired fantasy stories: children, horses & ponies, animals and birds”
Poetry
Isobel Gowdie, Hare Spell, from her trial for witchcraft in 1662 in Auldearn, Scotland.
Valerie Worth, poems from A Crone’s Book of Words, Llewellyn Publications, USA.
Valerie Worth, poems from A Crone’s Book of Words, Llewellyn Publications, USA.
Owl drawings
Research for Blodeuwedd, Welsh story from the Mabinogion.
Owls from the Horniman Museum Natural History gallery, Wildlife Drawing Club.
Owls from the Horniman Museum Natural History gallery, Wildlife Drawing Club.
The Little Angel Puppet Theatre
The Little Angel Theatre workshop, Islington, London.
Foundling Tokens
Foundling Tokens from the Thomas Coram Foundling Museum, London.
Client: Greater London Authority, London Curriculum for Art.
Client: Greater London Authority, London Curriculum for Art.
The Foundling Museum tells the story of the Foundling Hospital,
London's first home for abandoned children and of three major figures in
British history: its campaigning founder the philanthropist Thomas
Coram (who was from Lyme Regis), the artist William Hogarth and the
composer George Frideric Handel. The museum is now in a building
adjacent to the original site of the Hospital, which was demolished in
1928.
Sometimes, when a mother gave her baby over to the care of the Hospital, she left a token by which her child might be identified should she ever return to claim them. There were also plea letters, and the Hospital would take a swatch of the baby's clothing or blanket, again for identification purposes. Each child would be re-christened so they lost all contact with their previous identity. The Hospital kept the tokens in its archive. They were never given to the unclaimed children in case it compromised the identity of the mother.
The little objects are heart-breakingly sad. Some obviously made with such care, and no small expense, that one wonders how the mother could not afford to keep her child. Illegitimacy was such a stigma at that time that poverty was not the only reason a woman might not keep her own baby. Some are just curios, of no monetary value, but unique in their form so as to be perfectly suited to their purpose. Half a coin, a strange seed, a tiny fish made of bone, a thimble. Each one hides a story.
Client: Greater London Authority, London Curriculum for Art
Sometimes, when a mother gave her baby over to the care of the Hospital, she left a token by which her child might be identified should she ever return to claim them. There were also plea letters, and the Hospital would take a swatch of the baby's clothing or blanket, again for identification purposes. Each child would be re-christened so they lost all contact with their previous identity. The Hospital kept the tokens in its archive. They were never given to the unclaimed children in case it compromised the identity of the mother.
The little objects are heart-breakingly sad. Some obviously made with such care, and no small expense, that one wonders how the mother could not afford to keep her child. Illegitimacy was such a stigma at that time that poverty was not the only reason a woman might not keep her own baby. Some are just curios, of no monetary value, but unique in their form so as to be perfectly suited to their purpose. Half a coin, a strange seed, a tiny fish made of bone, a thimble. Each one hides a story.
Client: Greater London Authority, London Curriculum for Art