"Following a sequential
project in 2012 for which I made a book for every day of the year, I decided to make a picture of a face for
every day of 2013. I started with no
rules except that there would be a face for every day of the year. Sometimes I make two or three in one day,
sometimes none. They are numbered but
not dated. I have 75 more to make by the
31st December and I will be adding them here as I make them. Eventually they too will be photographed,
reduced in size and displayed in the last of the five frames exhibited here.
When drawing the faces, I
try to allow myself the freedom to draw like a child, without over considering
what the drawing is meant to portray. After
I have drawn them I put them up on my studio walls. As with the books that I made last year, the
faces I make respond to the faces I have made before. There are some faces that I notice keep
recurring. Some of them I recognize as
people who have been important in my life.
Some are drawings from life or photographs, often of my daughters. Others are simply created as I go along,
starting with an eye and seeing what happens.
Amongst other things the
faces allow me to explore ‘girlhood’, celebrate it, and acknowledge its loss as
part of my every day life. My youngest
daughter is grown up; drawing the faces helps me to acknowledge the part of me
that misses having a ‘little girl’ to be a mother to and the part of me that
doesn’t know quite when it happened that I stopped having the open, potent,
faithful belief in myself as having the possibility to live the life of any
number of young heroines from fairy tales, novels, films and magazines.
Inspired by a quilt that
was made by my great great great great grandmother, Anna Margaretta Brereton,
which I saw for the first time this year, I decided to reproduce the faces
in patchwork grids for the purpose of
this exhibition.
I find that the simple
rule of making something for every day releases me to work in an exploratory way
whilst keeping one thread of certainty running through."