My work reinterprets traditional ornament, taking inspiration from highly decorative styles throughout history. Within this I weave personal narratives and symbolism, allowing my discoveries and reflections to inform my decorative approach.

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This collection of pieces holds many different meanings.

First, the acanthus as an ornament. Ornament adds a layer beyond somethings primary function, and by doing so it elevates its importance. Including this idea within my work highlights memory as a gift, something which we are often unaware of until it fails us or someone around us.

Second, the acanthus as a perennial plant, symbolising rebirth, and durability. As well as this, the acanthus also invades other plants and the surrounding areas, mirroring how Alzheimer’s affects the brain, becoming overgrown with plaques and tangles, causing memory loss and distortion.

The surface decoration explored in these pieces reflects fading and deteriorating, illustrating the gradual disappearance of memory and the passive conceptualisation of forgetting.

The forms for these pieces were refined during a time of personal grief, and I found that the act of repetitive making and intense focus became my way of healing. It was on reading the following quote that I understood the importance of sitting with my sadness and allowing its evolution.

‘Consider whether great changes have not happened deep inside your being in times when you were sad... If only we could see a little farther than our knowledge reaches and a little beyond the borders of our intuition, we might perhaps bear our sorrows more trustingly than we do our joys. For they are the moments when something new enters us, something unknown. Our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, they take a step back, a stillness arises, and the new thing, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing.’

Barrows, Anita; Macy, Joanna. A Year with Rilke (p. 52). HarperCollins.