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Session with Melanie Rose, responses to place and thinking about the walk I usually do with my dog Cody.

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abstract painting using an image of my brother's ceiling as inspiration

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London with Frances Hatch at the Royal Watercolour Society. Workshop using foraged materials from the locality and material brought by Frances. 

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Image source: Cas Holmes website www.casholmes.uk accessed 21.01.2025

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The first course I came to at West Dean has been very influential and Cas Holmes' work has been a great inspiration. Her use of fabrics and papers, layering and transparency and stitch has had an impact on my practice.

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Thinking about a place that meant something to us, or where we would like to be. Subconsciously mine turned out to be an aerial view of London and the winding river Thames. 

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Brief: 'a resolved piece of work that either responds to West Dean as a place, or one [that has] applied the methodology developed in taught sessions to respond to a place of [my] choosing. This could be, but is not limited to, a physical, imaginary, or emotional place.'

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My 'place' is my brother's mind. He developed schizophrenia over thirty years ago and since then we (as a family) have experienced much in relation to what is going on in Stephen's mind.

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Image source: Science photo library SCIEPRO/Getty images 

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Trying to imagine what is in Stephen's mind

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Trying to imagine what is in Stephen's mind

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In my quest to try and imagine what my brother experiences when he is psychotic I read a book called "Henry's Demons" by Patrick and Henry Cockburn (2011, Simon and Schuster Ltd.). This gave an interesting insight into the mind of another schizophrenic. Henry Cockburn developed schizophrenia at roughly same age as my brother and for him the experience of psychosis was not frightening as I had presumed it would be. He heard voices telling him to do things - unfortunately the things the voices were telling him to do were dangerous to Henry. But his psychosis was generally a bit like a dream rather than a nightmare. This is partly why many schizophrenics think that there is nothing wrong with them and that people are trying to detain them against their will. As a result there is a constant cycle of psychosis, sectioning, rehabilitation and assimilation back into the community followed by a refusal to take medication which leads to psychosis and so on.

Other books consulted:

Frazer-Carroll M., `Mad world - the politics of mental health', 2023, Pluto Press, UK.

Seeman M., Littnum S., Plummer J., Thornton J., Jeffries J., 'Living and working with schizophrenia', 1982, Janssen Pharmaceutical Ltd, UK.

Busine, L., 'Beyond Reason - art and psychosis', 1998, Hayward Gallery, UK.

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Image source: Andrew Carnie's website www.andrewcarnie.co.uk accessed 21.01.2025

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Andrew Carnie

Mel suggested I look at Andrew Carnie's work because I wanted to project images onto and through my work. Going forward I would like to go and see his artwork as I think there are elements in it which would connect with some of the things in my practice.

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Video of my brother taken in London on a visit to him just before he was sectioned again.

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I experimented with several different methods of image transfer techniques. I printed out images onto plastic sheets, printable cotton fabric, vellum (fake), tracing paper and normal paper. I used acrylic mediums to transfer the images, some more successfully than others. I used a company called Contrado which was recommended by Vanessa Rolf to print out images on voile fabric.

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From our printing block with Mary Dalton I produced some images related to my brother's illness.

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Most of the images were glued on and then sewn around with pink thread. I wanted a patchwork/applique effect.

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I made a tobacco dye to colour and fragrance the work. I spent quite a lot of time researching the smell of cannabis (legally!) and procured some water scented with cannabis. I wanted to put this in an evaporator but thought it might be toxic so decided against that. Instead I passed round the water infused with tobacco to give an olfactory experience of my brother's flat.

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Finished piece of work with Millenium wheel and grey tower blocks.

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I had two options with the projection -either a slideshow of images or a video with accompanying audio. I decided to use the video in the end but I like the effect of the slideshow too.