Audiovisual Cultures episode 103 – Remembering Sally Madge automated transcript

hello and welcome to the audio visual cultures the podcast that explores different areas of arts and culture I'm polo player and in this special episode I have the privilege of presenting memories of artists Ali match who we sadly lost in November twenty twenty Sally was a prolific practitioner educator and mentor across many approaches to making and parking he was embedded in the art world in the north of England as I mentioned later on Sally featured in episode forty off this podcast and that episode is linked in the show notes asses the repository of the oral remembrances from some of Sally's friends and colleagues that you're about to hear justice Ali presented a portrait of herself an aptitude for day we have attempted to produce an aural collage of our memories of Sally her transgressive nests her supportive encouraging way her mischievous presents her energy her intellect and what she has meant in our own lives and our ways of working the voice is Europe bites here in order of appearance R. Alexander Hughes and data alley co words Simon Murray Richard James whole Clara ward Adam Phillips and Joe way ties with Scott black satin Allana Mitchell myself polo player Sandra Johnston and finally a poetic prose reading from Michael Tucker my huge thanks to each contributor into Sally's partner Tom Jennings he is making tremendous efforts to ensure Sally's legacy and has been instrumental in the production of this episode's I would like to dedicate this episode to Tom as well as to Sally they were quite the team for those of you listening he knew Sally I hope the memories to fall hello will raise some smiles and for those of you who didn't know Sally I hope this provides some motivation to look at her work thanks for some of which are also in the show notes I will not hand over to Alex and data to lead us and remembering solid match sure wind wind swept hair only energy yes open invitation handles questions asked S. discoveries exploration discerning women's eyes that read me ask you what the trees warm can you cancel this zero tactile play fire she won a Latin she style style yes style easy equal in in a tent is free spirited not not very encouraging me to relax reassurance downed trees hi strong celebration and see and the kitchen table T. clay from the side weeping her have some high thinking busy talking to caring for rule breaker sure it's made me feel like I worry too much about doing the right thing and they are saying once the older you get the less you care to do more of what you want to have the same feeling all that the best thing you can do this let go okay well she said I just think inicia even simple sometimes it gets into trouble but you just have to say what you think there must be at the time where we technically broke into her old home this was one like remaining in the house of Commons yeah then forwarded across and we ponder over the fence and then we met at local kind of consulting totaling out this is John Choate yes I remember attending a story in our slightly saying she had every right to be students down lights and stuff typical solid she when I think of her as a sort of way in way of thinking about her is reminding me to not worry so much or two everything things but just to do what I feel I want to do which sometimes can be harder than it sounds to reading this into yourself and just do what you want without thinking about what does it mean are and will not be good enough just to throw that one out the window and just to do it anyway yeah I think this will be the strongest things on tape from nine Tony is to just try and it's my life the way I want to the way that feels right try to kind of not sweat the small stuff No Way Out in cat Simon Murray and I'm responding to the invitation from Tolman pulling to contribute to a short put costs to these various commemorations system he would really remembrances of Sally I was so delighted to do this it's take me a hell of a long time to think how what I would say and how much I would do it and even now I've just written a few notes and I hope this won't be too incoherent hope there will be two restructurings my wife went to cook up who knew Sally as well as I did %HESITATION will be contributing to the stop and shop event that you and your team %HESITATION so would be contributing to this particular little put cost a new study socially Newcastle ferries mutual friends and apos crossed in those ways but we also taught together at the university of Sunderland between two thousand and two thousand four and bonded around that experience it wasn't a dreadful experience for me but I never felt fully %HESITATION so signed up to the most of a conventional practices that were being taught on that program and I think somebody was the same I came from a sociological cultural studies and theater background and Sally from the visual arts but we met in the engage through performance through experimental theater you know it's weird a merry out possibilities I left the northeast where I spent much of my adult life from being a student in two thousand fool to take up the job director theater Dartington college of arts and it wasn't until I moved to Dartington but I fully realize how much %HESITATION territories of interests overlapped and once again I kinda regretted not articulating that tool enjoying that overlap of interest when I actually worked with somebody at Sunderland what I particularly appreciated about Sally's work because it's playfulness making me every day the %HESITATION regarded in the ordinary extraordinary how lack of interest in the commodified world of contemporary %HESITATION lack of interest is a bit mild sometimes it verges on contempt I think the eclectic range of her practices how lack of worthiness preciousness note to standing the strong shed political commitment I'm not sure if somebody ever soaring counted Tydeus controls work cuticles known about Cantel but I sent strong connection filiation between them through found objects the every day through collage assemblers sure what come to all cooled on but I should through rubbish detritus through quick human under the ultimate political commitment a commitment to make the local the particular national and international and of course they both allowed myself came from a background in visual arts I checked out issues of my notes on cancel his work I teach at the university of Glasgow and %HESITATION the couple could someone to refer to here and in the book the righteous is running through controls into %HESITATION %HESITATION of Mrs fascination with what he cooled reality of a low order and council says hello world %HESITATION which continuously to months of examined and express issues through base materials the basis possible materials that up pool deprived of dignity and prestige defenseless and often downright contemptible I like that done right contemptible I do see connections here %HESITATION what I understand to be somebody's thought practice inside because I was away from Newcastle for the last seventeen years much of a more recent work I never really sold are encountered I think the last time I saw somebody was it a wonderful seventieth birthday party celebration in time not to the same club than that around that time we had some exchanges by email in the conversation about ruins and this was in relation to the book I was researching and writing which ultimately was published last year and it was cool performing ruins %HESITATION the connection particularly walls the shelter that she first directed on Linda's phone in two thousand and two and then it's regular ruination either through natural or human forces this fascinated me and Sally's retrospective designation of the whole story here %HESITATION the whole %HESITATION Shelton as a public artwork in this site specific installation tickled my imagination I so wish I'd written about this in the book I was going to and then for various reasons it didn't find its way into one of the chapters I regret battled there are so many conversations I wish I'd had with somebody I sometimes have them in my head indication he rehearsed them when I'm walking the dog I love to Spock a human the great in the oyster and a playful refusal to accept the boundaries of Alton performance practices disinterest in the labels of community also socially engaged practice if the word boundaries they were there to be gleefully transgressed and ignored I love that's appreciated that's about somebody in her life and in her work as one to finish with a couple more %HESITATION quotations from come to %HESITATION which somehow connect us in a very literal way but the connect with Sally and her death and what we all feel about that and these two quotes make me think of Sally and where she is now these are the little statements which came from performance work the tattoo had written and performed very close to his own death and I think he was aware of his impending death because he was in the well mine and at one point he says I'm on stage again I think I'll never fully and clearly explain this habit to you or to me actually it's not the stage but the border and in his final production much leverage tune which is in nineteen eighty eight he actually acted as well as being the student really quirky on the stage director orchestrating conducting his performance and this makes me think of Sally and where she might be in a kind of speaks his lines the motion of a return in a moment I went into shabby and disreputable pub I've been looking to it for a long time at nights sleepless I've been going to a meeting I don't know with whom either with phantoms or with people I think that's what I've got to say thanks very much I've seen Charlie about because I was friends with Carol Luby festival I thank the first time we got introduced properly and actually started talking was she was doing some artwork the legend Phil where she was gathering like the dust from the library itself and putting it into little bags and just discussing what will discuss reconstituted out well to be fragments of meteorite dust skin %HESITATION bats I could tell she was somebody who really fought about the history of things she put importance on stuff but she also understood that there was are you made to the mundanity aswell there was however in the things that people didn't often see and as the years went on I would see Sally here and there she was one of those sort of faces and people who you would want to gravitate to interest say hi and just check out the way I talk about what the hell is actually going on because I think men have had our soldiers suddenly respect about the factor of sometimes the occupants then we would go to west so by the Daddy one of the performances that are really remember head doing once the one where she would have little intro let and eight she was dressed in the usual sort of like black trousers black jumper but she also had like a white coach John and she would ask people who were wearing like Satan like knitted fabrics so whenever she would actually ask if she could grow the lint roller on and have it as actual sort of piece of evidence of what people carry with them day to day on the surface level goodness me it's so subtle and so minimal and yet it has so much impact on what it actually holds one of the times I did see it do this she was in like a more obscure and the Baltic baby nine near the stairway near where the restroom facilities was and I never saw or complain about anything like that I think she enjoyed the suppleness of fangs chest and tried to sell she enjoyed what she did but if she thought something was crap she would just say scrap and now the phones that I think I remember had doing it was a loner Simpson symposium about memory and I think they actually have videos of this on the Baltic website and she was exploring some that's the realist elements of performance and memory she was even discussing her interests and Freud and Freud museum and the objects stuck to it occupying the museum and how even subtle interventions could do so much to change the environment thanks Ali was like that she's known for a installation work she's known for her work as an educator and she's one of those artists who I think she should have been given more credence and anytime but she was happy actually being slightly in the background for people to discuss happenstance really turned a corner and suddenly you're you're encountering Saudi mileage piece of work and I know when I was helping her out with the school workshops and all that one of the first things I would remember that waiting for a full open is sitting in a kitchen actually looking at like an hour's PCA bad clock just being intrigued by it and we which said that this kitchen table and just try to win the Cup of tea and then get ready for to go out Sally was the type of person who if you knew somebody somebody probably knew Sally I've got a good friend of mine who had hair as a teacher and she said she was one of those teachers who has told you to keep going because she recommends that you have the talent as well as just being this inspirational artists who I really at my end and also being my friend I think she took turns with some of us being mental I think that was part of a gift in a way once the sense of she can see potential promise in people she tried to hold it out ever so gently just to like make you see that you're not chest what you think your limits are I miss Sally really do and I think Newcastle will be lacking from absence but on the other hand I'm hoping that her legacy crew out the people in this city and the region and beyond will extend fairgrounds hello I'm class I guess some of multi media artist nowadays living in what way but I lived in new castle and focus on live up to a long time a new satellite for about eighteen years when I matter I just started on the MA in fine out at Sunderland unix and because I was interested in live up they went for her to be my personal check to even though she was actually teaching on the performing arts degree course not the MA I have a very clear memory of the first second I saw her striding through the doors to the studios towards me with that mischievous Clinton ally and a handout stretched saying you must be class and I instantly thought it's not a version of me but then I also got to know her I got to know she was only someone you could double this by it to be like she had so much energy most alive I think sometimes when you meet someone you can recognize something in them before you even know them that might be very similar to something in yourself I think myself and suddenly had very similar ways of thinking about things in life and each approach our own work processing ideas in a very similar mama even if the results came out very differently %HESITATION member conversations with both was going and I don't have a cat I was shocked by anything we see in the art world easily we once went see cirque de soleil together in new castle stadium there was a lot of anticipation as the tickets were expensive so we saved and then went it was great it was everything you'd think it would but it was sent to somebody what what was funny was with both sides and while we did notice what was going on on the stage of course but we were both a lot more interested in how they convict the lighting or how that does not affect built that sent except we were both a lot more interested in what was going on offstage well the known and sat discussing it all the way through the show I think Sally probably had a bigger influence on my creative life than I will ever really be aware of and I don't think she'll ever ready stop influencing me I was in a particularly tricky situation but the gallery recently when I found myself thinking what sunny side which help me respond in Amman %HESITATION I ended up feeling quite proud of the last time I saw her sometime in December two thousand and nineteen I was over in new castle for a few days so as usual we have to catch up session in the kitchen and went downstairs to his studio and she wanted to show me what should be market now which was complex it was always fascinating going inside the studio as there was all sorts of stuff everywhere and so many ideas hello she's the only person I've known that it was normal for her to always have a freezer full of dead birds and actually I've been collecting on the multi for her no never have identified what kind of animal that from being funding through the lock down to a low marks in the written about now well I live but when she explained what she be making the frogs from scraps of fabric that had washed up on the beach and thinking about the process of making the money what that involved exactly it just made my head explode I've been interested in recycling and my own work a long time but when she told me about what she's been doing a lot she's just taken it to a whole other level completely I was and still am and all of the whole idea and I couldn't have asked for a better shooter on the imac she was always there whenever I needed to talk to my work or life I didn't find out for you yes until it came out accidentally in conversation with her one day that she had she took me for the entire idea of the cost and has spent time for free I think that alone shows how much of a special person she was I don't always felt a content coming up for the and when I asked why she just said she was interested in what I was doing because it was a lot closer to home work and ending on the performing arts degree I used to get questions Aussies hope on the degree cost sitting in with the students and I think she probably got the most performances out of many that I've ever done in those classes the program modeled on the make some anonymous Sir my name's Adam Phillips I work with IBM foundation at university of Sunderland can start in two thousand and nine and then I think something else was a document some performances and from that point it quite a lot of collaboration with Sally specially around some of the Linda's found shelter things two thousand twelve thirteen fourteen maybe yes I am I am thanks I'm trying to remember the year I mean so they both work together but it would be a couple of years before all the mom foundation I guess I went in there to teach initially then I became the course leader and Sally joined us which is amazing it worked out really well for a very good times Sally had obviously worked at Sunderland full sometime before the US cannot shift I think she might have retired the full I think she joined the foundation in the performing arts degree with a performing on us until in two different molecules and and toward the foundation prior to that as well so I'm used to ceramics at some point as well I think so she told CNN influence at all of different courses and was ready at apple and I guess to a certain extent this is why she was such an awesome foundation you know bit of assists hello more parallelism of reasons that machine physical Wilson said the course was a very good match for her as well yeah when I started it was I suppose I just do my P. G. C. so that's when I first met Sally it was is a doing teacher training and already know what you're doing but it was really nice to have a range of different people the festivities but yeah Sally was very helpful and encouraging the students listened Colin she spoke it seemed from my first teacher training so new pass and when I remember how to on an isolated as well she was just quiet in the room with why she settles things yes very nice use she wore a thirty very lightly and %HESITATION I guess it was naturally born from a lot of experience and she was an amazing teacher as well that was the thing she could do research on a little bit because we were thinking about some of the projects you've been involved in that her ability to switch take on different roles is as you push students when needed %HESITATION Sydney be hugely empathetic when needed as well and %HESITATION who also talks a little bit to make in your world at different stages of %HESITATION teaching halls practices and all of that and %HESITATION and the nice thing about the study which was hugely respectful open to new ideas looked out to conversation you know the conversations in the stockroom how we develop projects together and reflected on what we've done we do an awful lot of team teaching at the time and you're right you'd sit down with Sally and a student I never listen to Saudi and you could almost there's a nice dialogue wasn't enough rain what you couldn't often the conversation between the staff and the students would hopefully you get swept along with one of the other or both of us but it was a really nice way to show students that we weren't really that vehicle is still not as you know this of course where you know so I'll wear hold a highway it's the if there's lots of different approaches you can take the best thing is to have a discussion about those and see which one excites and motivates and connects and Sonny was obviously huge asset as an office bringing the restless kind of imagination and multi disciplinary approaches in a real interesting different things as well I think you know so one thing props I learned whole attempted to take on board from site was just being interested the people are doing and creating a listing in the participate true nature of that yeah I think I remember initial team teaching tutorials that it was just very clear that she was reading skills as a communicator and she would take up time with them and I was in I think maybe slight difference now it was maybe more time to allow this now and focus on it was really good it kind of allowing space and supporting students and it was amazing sometimes to watch how much she might get out of school students in a way that I feel that sometimes I I definitely learned from that kind of takes your time and trying to find out more about the students engage with it personal circumstance of it more and I think she was that personal circumstance the empathy empathy isn't just for you and kind of really getting to the net it's you know for what is stopping people from moving forward you know and kind of reading for pay I remember being quite honest I remember yes I'm missing down one student he was clearly quite annoyed it sort of having that Utah Royals something wasn't right and I just remember I mean I was very new to the considered quite a step up from the side of god I'm sensing that something between us that you're not happy about it she rejection on history diffuse the situation through directly addressing and I think that's something that I lost teachers are great tap directly inside yeah she was reading town today a lot of times just die rechte articulate but empathetic communication yeah it would often %HESITATION confrontational and kind of in a way in a very human and I'm surprised I think that perhaps not true on the foundations we kind of end up working with some students more than others but certain ones that got to it was solid they were really invested in their own way can the critical thing with foundation every critical thing on the grease while taking on foundation you coming from school and there's a lot of expectation when you come say I feel right she kind of coming into the studio environment we're trying to encourage and open students up to experimentation but obviously that's an intimidating quite fearful thing for a lot of students this old history Cummings from school with those organizations and particularly young people at a critical stage in their development she was very finding out all seeing where you know we didn't have a problem with discussing and identifying with some of those innovations and oxide ease and I've definitely learned a lot from nothing that how important nowadays to understand anagram taken into the conversation topics students she was very very good with young people shot a very hands on different stages as well we have very mature students at this time as well to me it was fun wasn't it I think Jesse ministry a sense of fun and mischief to the place in a way that led to some really interesting she didn't work and yeah it was almost like we want to address those things so you can enjoy that's what we all want answers yeah it does sound like it's very it is difficult you know essentially she was definitely going to make it enjoyable naturally there was certainly more performance of Michael Mostyn performance work and things that was kind of being mental by Sally as well then there is actually see on the foundation today outside I think we simply influence the way we think around teaching and those sorts of roles and teaching and learning rate but like the kind of different roles people assume that it was more explicit the address when we developed a project with Saudi around these interests remember we called the project came about project full foundation students which a cross disciplinary bat game plan the project was really about he seemed to try different things for different subject areas it was really around basic strategies that you establish an office of designer in the studio to explore and to extend IT so it might be anything from seventy seven few rules around the number two is he gonna do any particular day to setting itself will performative strategies to see where they might lead incidents of fiscal outcomes that you my guess is a lot different always research course you thinking things like performance sausage grease nominal also strategies reflect society so many people in a lot of things that Sally was really really important to he doesn't practice you know so we've developed projects around the house and Senate to initiate every project we did a series of workshops which scraps you can say more about the secrets he thought Saddam all what you want cited pages as a team we designed a series of sort of Hoff day gains and the students went from space to space and what for the different member of staff and we'll kind of roughly I think mine was like a puzzle game using audio visual so projectors and computers and word puzzles and that and then it was a dressing up game Jim Boyles was just come in and we would be looking at the there was a bit of a myth around Saudis with but neither of us had she sort it this is actually what happened in this room we will see a teaching people coming out of the room which is also coming out of the room traumatized by we know that well in a positive way it said she was a came to our place for my understanding and solving sort of essentially brought the students into the room and try to see how far they could be pushed before that the pushback let's all push back in other ways understanding of it was that she had some sort of official overcoat a lab coat on maybe the clipboard I'm the reason the structure's not efficient so appearance I know this because I've also had Sonny take similar strategies it's definitely something I'm familiar with this well I know she's done this on the always teacher course where where at this kind of taking on that role so his instructions to the students I think might install it relatively mild but they would be in the position that they're in and knocked all follow out some of these incidents are related to follow until they were beginning to question the validity or lack of a sense of what it would be nice to do away with my ladies or even that pops the tire rack so wait son he was a young man to do it or dressing them it should be very strict you know since he had a meeting and should also take things quite far I think she was reading coaching students exactly %HESITATION you know to question authority question the rules are being questioned a brief question what could be passed to do I think it was a seems activities %HESITATION goals which were you know in my own way supposed to make them think about game play and we write down that that might include the roles within society %HESITATION day power play that goes on more broadly holds the power yeah it was really invented in way of encouraging kind of reflection and those kind of strategy is well we just looked at them with from gameplay I you say those sheets which I hugely invested in the work as a result but also the amount of students performance finalists graphic design is even change the show PO's of that you know will crosses was that with the kind of rights head in a business suit wasn't here kind of yeah really interesting out soon really really interesting pieces of work as a result of that kind of abuse of a lot to this kind of thinking and the strategies that some of the workshops that I use I also did the slide shows that project is when it is nothing said he brought a lot to say so fluxes Newman and remember I mean not the establishment to a case where the stands out for me studies work around the flux a show at the old Vic on the one hand you go taking on the role of this authoritative role within a teaching context and I remember taking students down to the flux and there was a lot of obscene musicological displays of fluxes wicks and Sally and been given license by the Baltics sale last final take to develop performance pieces around a sequence when in the evening then you get to this particular case remember Sally had a %HESITATION cleaning trolley the laptop again on the lock up again yeah but more like a cleaning it like seems kind of almost %HESITATION some of the visit is that she was completely invisible and for the students to go and see this show and he needs to come out the peripheral vision of a cleaner instead the like performance pieces might have been involved in my memory polishing the cases for a particular period of time all over again cordoning off areas so that the people who visit the show could only say he said it sounds all Roderick viciously so you called government yeah so this kind of power does what she was doing it in the studio and teaching is a nice photo I think of %HESITATION combat his work which fluxes X. it is but it's got a very large sort of projected bottom within the social realizing that and that's just so silent so projection bottom so quite profusely for context and time yeah I mean choked up the crooks and full of the second since the way that dialogue between yourself as an artist and a teacher thanks and the dialogue between the teacher and a student in there hello so roles and I think that was something we all took a great deal from wasn't ready with sap and all like a studio for staff alongside the students something's working that was the staff wherein you know things like hitting the press and that kind of proximity of your whip to students something to something and the importance of thought it was something that I'm very easy to say within somebody's practice each didn't differentiate too much between those things and kind of reading courage those crossing visit did you have a T. R. rated like that will ceramics workshop she used to do as well when it is essential to building utopia so it just was real nice one because I think ceramics often has this focus upon making a profit or a phone yeah I'm kind of how to do that and the technical prowess of throwing in things about India and she kind of turned on its head and put the material as a way of sort of explore and really quite magical the large interesting ideas in the students first take the wet clay and stop building a building or a home or a house or pests in our character and then he saw giant MCAT style to unfold from F. at the end and not truly a debate and in the end of the Cold goes in the bin rather than gets fired I expect for ceramics project I do news Sally's teaching history a tool but these childlike play and in a way no activities where he put his size critical judgment and you're not really you know nothing on foundation those kind of and for all this is well I mean it's a really important thing to do isn't it quite often when you want to stop stop and Sonny was a meticulous selects around assist you know the millions he made Whistler thoughtful and carefully constructed at that workshop almost seems like off which is going to check in at the end yeah so much by protecting so much other stuff comes out of some of those approaches that was being explored and yet the students again the student voice yes I'm providing coverage to the point where they just actually having a howling stable is the real life I mean Sally being that well my time with my son and his time on the foundation that I know about which between the basement aspen house which you may have join us for some of us no no crack we moved over it's a very soon to you %HESITATION and St Mary's which subsequently became known set of token now is it an office building but it was fantastic it's time because we had this kind of independence from a wider institution building to house it I might have to members who had already retired and gelled so well because she had this great sense of phone with all these it is me in the middle and you imagine for teacher training that was a real if we look back it's quite nice are you excited because it's a real light yeah you want to see that kind of exchange and people questioning things at different points you shouldn't take things too seriously publishers of jury so invest in the teaching %HESITATION yeah so you should not invest it the complete opposite really invested but not down with institutional things I think foundation great a great space well I feel you know it was a really enjoyable period for an existing McLaws drawing to a close with staffing changes she ended up no longer working with us which is a real a real shame and how many years should come back out but they were amazing we were reminiscing about trip to Barcelona trips %HESITATION lively times anyway but there's not one way but those complaints from hotel managers about noise and realized it was actually a family and I are calling Hillary was from a member of the knights %HESITATION about nights out it was definitely the strips all those memories that you go back to restructure the finding they're used to and I %HESITATION she's powered balsa loner I'm a whale of a time is because you know since the phone that Saudi role and also see since the investment and things something with Grady call off from hi my name's Ruth Scott blacks and irons I am recording this from Philadelphia in the USA that's how they get day goes by that I don't think about Sally match Sadia factions have a my work is profound would be an understatement I first met Sally aspen house the art studios at Sunderland university back in two thousand four I was studying for my MA in fine arts and she was teaching on the performing arts program by our practice was heading towards performance and video so the heads of fine arts suggested I talk with her I knew from my very first chats with Sally that she was spelling with ideas thoughts opinions and talking to her so I right now I felt more like five minutes she was a generous with her time and thoughts and also I was able to push me too hard places in my off park this while still having that campaigns and gentle touch it was hugely supportive coming from a fairly traditional sculpture degree I didn't really know a lot about performance the talking of Sally okay so I'm going to walk to be possible to me she had a nice fear courage to art and life and in some ways that rubbed off on me I start cameras to my body great people hold signs during performances kept pushing the Saudis guidance horrified that was contagious follow good night following the sense to ask a question okay talk through an idea %HESITATION just for a chat about anything really she got me out of my comfort sign I remember it was the end of the MA program she gave me some literature that was predominately terrorism related and one quite stands out but I continue to think about even useful installation I created twenty fifteen eastern state penitentiary in Philadelphia where I now live there was no trace without resistance and no action on the surface without paying for my piece at eastern state penitentiary I title that no trace without resistance this was a work where I gold leaf the walls of a south check peeling paints all throughout the penitentiary that was peeling paint but there was one specific style that I wanted to work on I was thinking was what happens if we keep scratching underneath the surface it can be very ugly but if we go a little further often something magical and beautiful can be discovered hello this is Sally yesterday actually I was doing a photo shoot having my photo taken for projects about listening that my husband is working on while pacing for the fact that I was asked think back to a train with someone really listen to you instantly I was transported back to Sally's kitchen table often she sat and listened she was a good talking to she was an amazing Wisma skillet embodies the heart and soul of a person every time I go so hard decision or challenge in my life I think to myself what would Sally do and it really is a compass in the weeks and months after her death our family would see traces of her all around background and we live in Philadelphia as I mentioned last night that she gave Bob and I my husband's as at present when we first moved in together and actually now sets and the basement winds are of my art studio a China plate that she gave me that I often eat from also a penguin puppets she secretly gifted mine now five year old daughter Betsy on our last visit with Sally almost two years ago we called the penguin style one moment I got married almost ten years ago we ask guests about wanting to make it costs each year are the best in the open the costs this past year we opened Saudis how apps it was a beautiful crown and a pair of cool paper wedding glasses spectacles one of my fondest memories from that day and watching Sally dance she was really broken up the dance floor it was amazing to see when I think back again to talking at the kitchen table I think if that happens actually one of the first things my husband robin I talked about following her passing these amazing hands that made lots of lessons in bodies everything that the Sally she was always brimming with ideas in some ways I was envious that she had so many ideas it was really hard to keep track of everything that she was working on was just some inspiring has lived in Philadelphia now for the past ten years and just before moving here I embarked on a project when asked friends to write memory that was dear to them I actually recently came across south Miami it's written on some lined paper in her handwriting so I'm gonna just read outs as a child not sure how old I am playing doctors and nurses given my dolls injections holding my mother's darning needle isolated gas waiting until it is red hot the Catholic pushing it into the dolls up arm I feel a great sense of satisfaction is the hot needle slides effortlessly through the plastic and I'm with Joe leaves a small black and whole following this operation I apply sticking plaster stolen from the bathroom medicine cabinets I finish the procedure by talking up my doll comforting her and walking out to sleep I feel very grown up and the fashions this style has many holes in her arms so many games doctors and nurses Sally S. on the third of may two thousand and eleven and as I mentioned it's hand writing sorry it's a very precious piece of paper to me you know I don't really need to say anymore about that it's got Sally but no life for us and we can see from a young age that inquisitiveness and intense curiosity more recently I've actually picked up this project again I've really been thinking about at a loss how about memory and see how we can preserve memory and I thought a backseat is five ask you many questions about life but also had many questions about that it's very age appropriate but some of these conversations really take my breath away she describes dying as being in the start it's such a vessel and match but it's really hard to race out from one's mind and I think Sally would have loved us enough to think about how shall the project since the star and sent the lands and all the elements that go with that it really felt necessary to start this project up again how we take our memories with us to the star and with this project I'm really attempting to preserve some of these nominees you know when I have ideas like this I truly miss being able to talk Sally an email telling him my plans have encouragement support always whispering in my ear from a fall maybe not that far away the garden arms %HESITATION was looking down on me from the basement window the last time I saw Sally was over two years ago I was visiting the U. K. that's how my brother's wedding as always I drop by to see Sally and she's made myself my two young daughters and siliceous watch Betsy had just turned three and how he was only four months old Sally may have dared Phyllis folksy and to my surprise my daughter with me at the time slapped up every last drop she was sorry guys with my girls and I'm just I'm sorry happy in sales that she got to meet them and they got to meet her I don't think I ever told Sally how how much of an influence she had on me in my work and I definitely didn't tell her how much she meant to me as a friends which makes me sad but when I'm saying this I also if he had a little boy from my hands that tells me that she now and then instantly and transport it back to her kitchen had devilish laugh I'm not twinkle in high I'm alignment to and I'm an artist and a person who makes all things happen with other people and I've been doing that anyhow so for twenty years also so I've lived in the castle since ninety eight so I went to the casino did my degree graduates in two thousand two never left the telephone payment and I first knew Sonny reasonably soon after I graduated there was a platform for live %HESITATION that was a regional platform that she was one of the people he was the group is set up and I was in the first one and then to come running it after that and she was one of the people on the steering grade so I've known her since then it is definitely one of the things I've literally like the most green recent blood literally left you need the year before and took on this thing because I was like yeah I'll do it not knowing what I was doing and it was such an amazing team of people who just really support that I was like yeah get a minute I mean like with totally with me it was a no huge learning space but I never felt with her %HESITATION or with any of them like I was some kind of genius I always felt like an equal which was just amazing to be like a glitch that just left me we don't don't know each other but %HESITATION just into art and have enthusiasm for this thing I know that full on Apollo assistant incredible and so generous and so I will say my double she was called willow and in the pace of Sallie Mae she was anonymous I think yes it does say that in the article artist in this age of jumble the goddess has the pack remains nameless because it does not belong to match but it is staying at home to create this must please enter it just find it really funny that this idea that my job was anonymized because that might give away too much personal information somehow if the job has been named in the guardian that someone might be able to track us down doubles two things all the time because they have teeth that never stop growing said they need to constantly two two I used to give her the inside of the toilet roll into the conflict chiefs and she would cut them and it was really cute I spent Ricky because she would sort of do it side to side and then the pieces that were left away for like little smile shape shoot me because she wasn't eating them just and then they would suit to does that become a bit sort of nest material type thing so they M. that does the animals they really shouldn't they should live in a tank to a cage though I didn't personally know the of the time and she was in a cage and %HESITATION save temples you should really have them pass minimal social who is felt that side for one she was left on her right in that case we'll see she came out of the cage as well but still I'm really not sure how the conversation came around that simply making this connection of like me to look into this but but it definitely was I think we must've been talking about it at some point and I'm not sure which came first I don't think she was sitting around waiting for someone to have a job I think that something of the conversations perhaps that we were having about I didn't maybe she might have someone else you have to jump in and just so happened that she needs the I did but let that kind of thing about how they keep touring and all of that sort of thing and like just must have been some thing of conversation somewhere along the line I quite like the call of this and this is me making up and that's how I feel about it but it's not like I'm not sure what they remember but there is some element of it that was we will have been talking at some point I'm not even talking about having a javelin some think about that which is nothing to do without nothing and then this idea came out of that and that's really nice well it's nice to think about how it happened say the book it was very specific book that Sally Chinese that was cool the new illustrated universal reference book of nineteen thirty three willow the Jebel spend these few weeks just with that as the thing that she chewed up and she checked that it was okay but it wasn't poisonous Alaska to think it was a very different way to poke the paper for you in the paper and then she's always made other things from the newspaper center that does some of the the exists in her work it was common expression it wake good this this thing at the beginning about how it was going to be in the gallery it's quite a few years ago two thousand five yes it was going to be that well I was gonna live in the gallery and obviously someone would come in every day made sure she was okay and take them out plates that were actually gonna make me just as much as anybody else because again we found the right for me it wasn't unkind and it didn't feel like in many ways knowing what space was like at the time you filled out different opinion my house something still in a cage still no I definitely didn't feel terrible but we preemptively on the gallery preemptively spoke to the RSPCA about whether it would be cruel to Dana and they advise the company would pay and is one of those things is probably like somebody would have sent it so cool they've got a job %HESITATION being doing art no just being enjoyable I don't think it's ridiculous to get them in cages so even though I and %HESITATION I had was just a funny and funny situation but anyway the RSPCA sent yeah probably down to about seven steps Ali had her at her house so she lived with Holly for those few weeks of the exhibition and they did a %HESITATION I presume it was a live stream which sounds like something a sense like so simple but in in two thousand five split little little bit more complex assembly at the X. files episodes streamed into the galleries the gallery had a video of the job of making this nest yeah and it made the guardian it wasn't front page news but it was in the paper a definite in the paper what it says is a quote from I'm just reading from the article that said the seventy two year old books and the book is an old book original editor posted to the booking neighbors the reader to have a mine of information at their fingertips the jobless mining sections from the encyclopedia to make its nest I'm sure celibacy issue we took more eloquently about that book and everything to do with it I don't know very much off of my head about the new illustrated universal reference book from nineteen thirty three but it sounds fascinating I'm sure it is useful for universal references it's quite amazing book general knowledge gazetteer sports cookery pets handyman and much more what that means I'm just reading from what trump described us on a secondhand bookshop it's funny like it's one of these works that I don't feel necessarily that like not that anyone needs to be an authority on it but what I remember about it is to do with my job rather than to deal with all of the reasons which I should know about it this isn't quite a long time ago now and think about it we live and how tough it out immediately for very long say it makes sense that it wasn't much later that day you know the facts thing she didn't live much longer so it's this funny way of being connected through friendship and conversation and then they said to memories and Glendon people things and everyone helping each other out which is just such a lovely way and I think things work in new castle a lot and I think a lot of the best things in the best bits of the art world on how things happened three conversations and friendships and and that sort of evolution and in a solid someone who was completely at the heart of the fun and made my entry into that world Mary Smith and felt like an equal and like jewelry for sharing of ideas and thoughts and Pat and whatever else you have to make things and I think that's what's so great about our city and our community I remember having this conversation with her about her thinking about making new work and she hadn't made work for really long time and then there was this she had this drive to make new work which from about the sort of time and I feel like because I was doing this platform which was about young around this and kind of we were having this conversation about with that anyone can be making me work it wasn't just about being young in age it was just about coming back to a newly making new kinds of work doing performance which I think you really haven't been doing and not to when we were talking about this I think yes it was a sort of interesting time may be a bit different to sort of things you've been doing more recently that may be a more fresh because I'm talk about conversations that I'm like that like bits of conversation that remember but it is really nice moments of her talking about doing activism and how that was like performance in the coming together of these things and she decide to do and think that she was thinking about doing and some of that being a confidence to do that and the shift of %HESITATION I could do that was a really interesting bit of time to stay like I was developing whatever I was doing at same time but it felt really nice which Sally was really supportive of I was part of like a creepy but those definitely answer mutuality and I kind of have in seeing new work being made in supporting students through when she was working at Sunderland and she invited me to do teaching with some of the mental I've still had doing that and sort of hat inspiring younger people whether students alike may email of the people we were working with and then also saying that that was something she could do and finding new ways of making what that was really exciting to see and be part of a kind of connect to them I moved from Belfast to Newcastle in August twenty fourteen and Sandra Sandra Johnson was going to be away a lot of that month's during performances here there and everywhere you know and I didn't know anybody else here and so she paid me any email contacts to Sally because Sally was planning on offense that sounds great yeah I'd be really interested in and it was a site specific screening of cul de sac right at Lindisfarne holy islands the film and it's being made in that location and getting together and watching it and not location and being able to see I think it was mark today of the shelter was there at the time so I saw the second version of the shelter it was weird because I got thrown into this bunch of people I had never met before and you know Sally had emails and such yeah come on we will have to route traffic tend to combine to number four and it was this bizarre experience fine you know good day and this person was inviting me into her home and she had a Cup of tea in the kitchen and I think that was Sally's method of seduction perhaps getting in some not kitchen Republicans say sat there for back how to chop and then packed up the car and headed up there so %HESITATION can't remember will be talks if item is in the day is an avid years ago so I think we're just getting to know each other a little banks and have the most wonderful evening and I was very stressed and anxious because I didn't know anyone and I've never been there before and it was the darkest night ever seen because I'm a city slicker and there's no lights at all like there when it gets tough it was one of those for you you knew you were part of something special on the experiences always status may end and I had taken the photos as she J. and %HESITATION that Sally was quite keen to get copies of the photos so I put them on a CD four inches for came to have me come running to high C. K. N. I was working at Newcastle University so was on our doorstep had no excuse I was right across the road anyway so I had to go around for another couple today and discover the same day after the photos and stuff yeah we just kept in touch and over that year because I was contracted at Newcastle for eleven months sundered party organized to drafting event at north Cumbria and Baltic thirty nine and that was very solid deadline scope where she was dropping us all with the roller had she just chatted away and she was collecting your stories as well as each physical traces of your shop selling is a collector of sayings as well and she was collecting us you know six who referring us up keeping a sperm deadlock haven M. U. R. Dustin are traces of ourselves and those for Colton conversations that were not recorded in anyway it was just it was part of the performance as part of thought life active collecting this physical traces she was also collecting just getting to know yelping collecting your stories you know that summer holiday of all the stuff they put an emphasis trees system keep in tough Jana sticky paper entries using French chalk I think a dusting of French chalk to connect to Salem often make sure they didn't pick up anything else so it was an act of preservation and sounds strangely fascinating the subtle colors in the palette Cindy's beautiful abstract works of art that came out of that was great so you know those are your is to provide thanks in the first year that mean you Sally and then and then I had to move away for different job so I didn't see her really a toll for about year and a half and then when I moved back to Newcastle I wasn't very well for a while but then we started to see each other regularly and twenty nineteen we probably had seen each other since but she organized a nice dinner for Saunders fiftieth birthday in December twenty eighteen and Cisco this that'll kind of S. two gas there I never understood desk side so I sound like she's the real deal why she won't dina but with me for that she was she was interested she took an interest in people and you know it was in her suggestion that we spend more time together and then track twenty nineteen we did spend quite a lot of time together and I felt very close to sublease rate that year and that was when I was quite early and twenty nineteen then when I was brave enough to ask her but she takes some time for my podcast I'd love to interview you for my podcast and two might upset the lights not only did she consent to that but she said could I do something different could I maybe just reflects on my whole career and she wrote this beautiful reflective fast safe that she ratites then we have chats and so that was fishy the facts that I just remember the experience again we recorded it in the kitchen the number four I just remember that trying because failing of setting their cold I had to stay this monitor the recording make sure she was fine reassure her a lot because she wasn't confident about it and she didn't like what she's written and sometimes things are going it's beautiful it's most beautiful thing I've ever heard you know what she thought what she thought in our mind is not going to be changed and all of that but it is it's a really gorgeous essay and really informative and our conversation after it jury a lot more items that you know we really got into a lot of the same sex marriage in her work you we talked a lot about follies things having the folly and she told me but was she containing it by collecting for years and years and years old it's a fabric that had washed off you're on the shores all right the silence it's my great provisionally to the finish off some of that work because there was a lot of it she was actively working on when she died and quite a lot of things that were almost finished but not quite and I put the responsibility but just a great joy to just finish them off don't know if that's what's all you would have to miss them I see it as a collaboration my family that I never got to have when she was alive I think she had a real defines impact on me because as I was recovering from illness and transitioning really from being at quite a theoretical academic C. embracing a more creative approach chasing king and dating things and making things and tapping into that part of me where I was always making stuff as a child and I'm so when targets and then I just went on a more academic Passeridae as a teenager and I think Sally ready problem although that I just me again so it's really nice and to be able to see that for a little bit and just assisting her with some of her pieces so I'm Sandra Johnson I'm an artist a new Sally trouble each year's earns became part of the community the pharmacists %HESITATION in new castle realizing pretty quickly her insurance I was an amazing person that she was but yeah we connected through ought to create specific that says true performance art and questioning the sinking around the purpose of everything I did was Sally was %HESITATION was upon opening the door and trying to generate trying to create opportunities for others no matter how modest you sing yourself as part of the scene sings self as part of a collective body of people like you know you can work to each other's detriment to you come up to each other's gross I hope that we showed that this idea of if you can open something for somebody else on the way better better rather than this is my projects and space limitations of photons this is the she and this is the product it was very much about how does this exponents landscape has expanded its history and how does it expand into the present moment to fix social space a lot of our friendship was about sourcing and really working through the materiality also Jackson's substances and she came back from a strained out was fast and it was %HESITATION Kerr and she actually purified and mine's a bike for the focus for me but she finds in landscape which is perfect is this perfect gift she handed me like an envelope I bought a small shovel full of yellow ochre from the Cumbrian landscape and those interesting things like me often poker from Australia and also because I don't go in the art shop probably produced in France and then she handed me because she saw seem when she was walking through the landscape she was always find a lifeguard skills animal skeletons but also she made necklaces out of Robert down to middle sorts things out of storage and the side that she spotted a seam of yellow ochre in the middle of a coastal landscaping overseas to produce Ali to mine and to bring it back and that's we talked a lot about that particular thing and it is and how is an artist your Honda materials with the you're converting them into something else as a sculpture process as an artist to conversations with Sally were so rich because we had a ripple effect except for hours about distinctions between things in space in a way what makes something art or not art causes us to that line between our life that we are both interested in I wasn't just to emphasize a an artist in north Easton somebody having a strong social identity but also very strong feminist identity a lot of our conversations would be about what is to be a woman making performance and what it is to be putting a body in front of an audience and the phone bills to sign for legacy that should be %HESITATION underestimate is how churches please she felt about this woman and to it yourself awards and to be seen and to be seen doing things that are will show signs of chords and progressive for absurd too shiny so that was tremendous humor in the work which is very very difficult to do the four months since it's very difficult to make genuinely humorous work I think some of the %HESITATION got away with it because it was never cheap there's always something very mysterious but the way that she would turn the tables on things into the audience we should keep moving perceptions of what was happening she wrote quote hopefully change the momentum or changed you know change the pace of the estrogen are suggested to her she used language she used in a way the lecture format so she's one of those performers where the use of the speech and use of text was really really critically important and I think it was an expansion of her teaching and her sense of paying to go to get motivated to that when she was performing she was also informing in a way also cruising productive misinformation that she would see performance as a platform to play with ideas and play with people's prejudices or substances I very much like the way she used physicality and really precise sections but put in conjunction with writing the way that she delivered to Texas where she spoke when she was reading a text that she'd written was formality but then she would drift into informality and shop with the audience knows what steered by the city's sneeze shifts in mood and how she would work through a body of material which is also something that we have in common it's not overly choreographed how to work with a number of things and put them into motion some of Tennessee and the chaos of science you know how long you can keep each one of those ideas into this physical ideas how long you keep them alive for and what happens when they collide and what happens when %HESITATION the diminishing you have to leave them behind she was a very very strong link between the performer and Sally the researcher and academic and desire to inspire people through ideas and that was it within that was a very strong feminist agenda that I really really admire to what was Carl and the way that they pose seemingly carelessness and honestly you know they were so %HESITATION so funny and a reference you know when you're in the company whether they were performing or not it was just like so within that this woman had such passion such meticulous on it in a call so well but a sincerity and associated with the oxytocin forming on snow working with difficult ideas was so you know so much there and everything that she did it there was a kitchen composition or performance or teaching and also the way that she was with children the way that she brought here what I mean by reference to said childishness but not in the way of course I childish which are a hundred the noxious horrible message in art it was somebody's genuinely working with the spirits of innocence and invention and this is simply for the poor the way that she would put things in motion I'm not really sure which way they would come together I think that excitement was really tangible a new watch tower known to a lot of potential I think that's what I meant about the innocence that she has enough issues and some playfulness we don't know what the test is going to achieve but you throw yourself into it one hundred percent then there is the accidents that is the beautiful thing so I think we're both cell and I was fascinated with was hard to keep our spontaneous and system and if you don't keep this level of spontaneity within it that it loses some of its life I think she was interested in was the spark you know talking with her and this was a problem solver and having a creative relationship with her I know that she did this for many many many people this is the thing that's coming so he was a mentor and a huge creative support inspiration for so many people because she was well capable of putting the elbow and north giving you the extra so knowledge of like why are you holding back why don't you do it you know why don't you just do that I do not support a sick idea what's holding you back make a phone call and I think there's a lot of people like us to consider their just for things to happen I see many artists are rates of some of the people making good art you know this is sort of jealousy around but what I loved about Sally was so close that can never be enough good art is not possible so why wouldn't you engage in some humble way with seven markers ought Sally much there she is a tiny figure in the distance sprouting along the touchline vanishing into the mist soon she will appear again at the top of the deeds of sliding down with an armful of collected material scraps shreds will down the wind dried leaves be treacle feathers clusters of dried blood arek canvas strips carton of cuts ripped and crinkled staying with oily smears right plastic Schantz rusty orange imprints on bits of tarpaulin congealed pitch loosely strips of red brick docks lives of ply so the misshapen cobbled worn down fragments of glass beautifully bent sticks reach wrapped in bundles with found brunt cold fluorescent fibers knitted into extraordinary spatial drawings sometimes she would trudge torches at others she would hurry a small front steps in the sand the fading trailed behind to a trace of her urgency etched into the land she is the figure in the landscape we note her comprehensive movement about the beach down to the edge of the sea and back up over the change with people without people people moving towards our people moving away from her or part of her performance of exploring finding and making of interpreting the broad sandy spaces adjacent to the North Sea she celebrated core of old road lugged up from the sea and they're in the genes come across an elegant loop of insulated wire perhaps just an inch long Sally ever the whole card collector alert to every creative possibility researching stimuli for the future creative actions and just alive to the delight of finding she would have a soul collecting wood for the fire and we will return to some previously agreed income until they are well done perhaps she would have already %HESITATION arise blowing into our hands ready to ignite some cross some tended to get a place going on a winter's often in the mist hanging over the sea darkness descending sparks flying in the air would smoke trailing away into invisibility children like Amy and Lucy delighted at the venture Sally would crunch over in her fur coat and there would be food all of us sitting and watching and laughing and talking and eventually we would all go home the better for it each of us with our own digital collections in emulation of her enthusiasms days later things would appear joined up constructions in the yard tiny arrangements on shelves fact collages in books hanging sent to gather the precipitation consciousness that is scattered in the toddler articulated in combines enclosures in thought in Oct other fragments peeled off the world scraped off the beach natural the toddler and buried in the sand rescued from the fire blown by the wind clutch under her arm squeezed into her pockets bundled up with strange and in the pages of sickening workbooks these found poems of fragments unexpected combinations books like sheaves feathers rags hanging out of the binding the book of the found materials between the pages are holding firm for experience this was Saturday the spontaneous wrestler's performance artist being closely observed in her practice Sally as a teacher introducing us to techniques of alfresco making engaging with the land finding and openness about material of freedom to make using anything to hand collaborating to find meanings and expression surprising alliances and alignments juxtapositions and overlaps generating metaphor and narrative Sally a tide line in your studio offering findings making urgent revelations look what I found indexical gestures look at what is possible fairies who from the sea all this from where we have worked where we have been taken hearing the wave sweeping over the sand seeing the shag flying low over the cold we'll see and it is %HESITATION spreading outwards through you flooding through your house the precious unforgettable Fulson Thomas's crescent and on and on through those of us you brought within your compass a maker a teacher of a former a divisor of activities happenings and events constructing landmarks out in the North Sea borders asserting the principles of land out engaging opening watching us encouraging us children converged on her ready to receive her praise and common tree for their own making back in the kitchen around the table celebrating with conviviality the error of the North Sea in the malls in the rivers with a glass of wine shared food inclusive talking no one outside everyone gathered together around Sally around her table around her mind around her making building in her passions an inspiration to all of us a polymath the mental and artist Sally manage rivers imagine a moderate offshore breeze when the tide begins to wane with the lapping of tiny waves blown back against the grain battles in the sun crackle as they shift this way and that while you stroll along the shoreline with Sally chewing the North Sea fast