at Sheffield art college I made numerous clay pots, every Friday, large ones. I intended to paint them as a family, as I had about half a dozen from a foot high to four feet tall. A big,tall fat pot, I was going to put in my dad's cardigan he always wore, a smaller one in mum's pinny etc In the event, my lecturer never looked at them. I think he had some sort of problem with mature students and kept going on about Freud, whom I disliked - though at times I felt he was very clever and sensitive and listened to all his lectures carefully. I was new to college at 40 yrs old and new to the city and just been dumped by ex -penniless- with my sons here, could have done with more guidance about their routine as I was a 10 am till 4 pm take a lunch break worker. I worked very hard indeed, in clay, in wood and all manner of things, wools, cardboard,polystyrene from the skips, lead etc sketching everything and keeping an art diary, but I don't think he understood that, as I am not given to talking a lot. I saw him once tut at my tidy corner with its drawing books full of ideas on the desk, little wood sculptures on the windows, larger ones standing on the side and the pots in the clay room, where they did know me and watched what I did. Adults are often misunderstood, for instance, my best friend from Refugee camp died of cancer whilst I was there. That day we had a painting class, we were asked to paint in the brightest colours we could. I just kept using white, couldn't help it. The lecturer yelled at me: you again, think you can do everything your own way..I was very close to tears and really wasn't taking much in, but adults are not liked on art courses and east european refugee camp people least of all-I just continued painting white, which she thought was some sort of agro against her. My only best friend had died, that is all I could think of.
My son has one pot still and some wood carvings, others have got lost and some got smashed at the art college. He had taken a gun to his brain on the day he gave out the examination marks, first having tidied out his desk, and blown his brains out. So I never got to find out whether the clay family was a good idea or not, but I thoroughly enjoyed making them. So now again I am dabbling in clay, after carving wood etc