During a recent clear out of my studio space I decided to put some shelves up, right at the top of the wall, not easy to access and out of harms way, a place for the hundreds of objects which I have collected over the many years that I’ve had an instinct to gather. I have shells, marbles, broken china, postcards, and photographs, unidentified metal objects from mechanisms and so many pieces of paper ephemera. Much is battered by time and nature and all of it thrown away at some point by someone. It has to do with the objects of memory fetish I have. The way that interactions with nature, and people imprints onto things, giving them narrative, which is very often unknown to me. I also save every unsuccessful paper-based sketch, print and painting in a drawer, and it’s this pile of coloured scraps inspired me to make collages.

Still work in progress, and being a lover of process and the beauty of materials I can feel the excitement of other ways to develop the building. I think that there is a place for encaustic and heat as well as paint.

When making them I could feel narrative developing both in the way which I selected specific pieces to bring together and in the remembering of places where I sourced objects, took photographs, made prints, and found things. The text derived out of wanting to share something of this although a sense of secrecy stopped me from over sharing.