Traces is the connecting theme as textile artist and colour consultant Polly Meynell invites three fellow artists to exhibit with her at her Barnham home.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Artist at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely to speak
00:06again to the Polymenal, and you are coming up with a really fabulous, important sounding
00:11exhibition at your home in Barnham, at the house at Hill Lane in Barnham, shortly with
00:17three other artists, but it's one that looks at, well traces you're saying, but important
00:23connection to a crucial charity that you're working with.
00:28Thank you, yes, the charity is Not Beyond Redemption, set up by founder Camilla Baldwin,
00:34to give advocacy for free to mothers in prison. So most women who go into prison who have
00:41young children or have families are not able to advocate for themselves, and this offers
00:47a bridge of hope to be able to reconnect with their families.
00:51How did you get involved with the charity?
00:55I met Camilla Baldwin at another event and was asked to host her for the evening, and
01:03we got talking about the work that she did, and she then commissioned me to create a piece
01:07of artwork to embody the hope that this charity provide for women, and that led to a series
01:16of different pieces of artworks that I have since been creating, and have wanted to put
01:21together as part of this exhibition, to just discuss the idea of, and the impact and the
01:31traces that are left by separation between mothers predominantly and their children.
01:37How do you express that in art, how does that translate?
01:42Well for me this has been a series of, it started as a series of life drawings, and
01:49of how one expresses separation with the body, and how one feels that impact of separation,
01:59and that inspired some pieces of work to be sketched out and built up as textile artworks,
02:09which is my medium. So it's really a life form for four different pieces of work, I'm
02:17also doing a more detailed piece of hands, so just the impact of what one does with one's
02:25hands when one is considering or dwelling in a separated space, and how that looks,
02:34how that impacts.
02:35It sounds fascinating, and this is you reflecting in obviously different circumstances on your
02:40own motherhood as well, and the separation that inevitably brings as children grow up.
02:45Absolutely, and my children have grown up and they have left home, and whilst this isn't
02:51a trauma, they are well and they are thriving. It is a different chapter, and it's something
02:59that I think a lot of us feel that we just need to have that stiff our lip and just get
03:04on with life, and yes we do, we do do that. But it's also something that we can reflect
03:11on, we can acknowledge, and we can accept and observe, and this is something that I
03:17have wanted to do for my own chapter as I pass through this transition time, from being
03:24a mother with children at home, to being a mother with children who are not at home and
03:29not present.
03:30It sounds an excellent exhibition, really lovely to speak to you again, thank you.
03:35Thank you so much.