Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 19: Carrie Reichardt

Episode Date: December 14, 2020

Let me introduce you to Carrie Reichardt. She's an artist who lives round the corner from me in little old suburban Chiswick. And she has completely covered her home with mosaic so that it's now an eye-popping work of art. When I met her, she did not disappoint. She's refreshingly honest, she's brave and she's a bit bonkers. And she says that as a post-menopausal woman, she now feels more like a teenager than she ever has before.We talked death row, her mum's ferocious knitting, and being honest with your children about your failings.Oh yes, and by the way, this one's got a happy ever after ending! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Hey there podcats, I'm taking a bit of a risk here. I'm recording this in my kitchen and I can see my five-year-old and my nearly two-year-old playing together. So... Jones! Jones, well done Jess, that looks great.

It's just... Perfect. Yeah, they're over there playing. We might get a few of those interruptions, I might give up the ghost, but let's have a go. So it's funny with this podcast. A few times now I've had it where I've interviewed someone and I've thought I've had kind of a general idea of how our conversation's going to go. And then when we actually get to talk, they really surprise me.

And this is one of those. So today's podcast guest is someone called carrie reichardt now carrie lives down the road from me so i rushed her name there didn't i carrie reichardt so carrie is someone she's a local artist um i live in chiswick uh in west london and sometimes when i'm out and about i see these little mosaic tiles uh they'll have little messages on them so they might have a photograph and there's a quote quite a lot of them are quite sort of either slightly anarchic or kind of uplifting uh like i've got one in my kitchen that i bought from her actually it's a plate and it says life is short

always choose happiness and there's a picture of a sort of 1950s pinup so she'd do the things like that or she'll do fight the patriarchy or she'll do um never trust an artist they move seamlessly throughout classes and it can can deceive you fun things i might have misquoted that last one i'm being i'm sort of wandering around the house trying to find where i put the tile that has that the actual quote you know what i'm going to find it for you hang on a second here we go sorry this is the real quote beware of artists they mix with all classes of society and are therefore the most dangerous how brilliant is that anyway i knew carrie's house before i knew carrie she's got a house that's completely covered in mosaic tiles i don't mean it's got a section of it that's mosaic i mean

front and back the entire every bit of brickwork is covered in a mosaic tile. Not just mosaics tiles, though. There's doll heads and messages and pictures formed in the mosaic. It's a completely astonishing sight. And it's on our way to our local overground station. So it sort of stopped me in my tracks. And Richard and I would kind of go there and take pictures of bits and bobs that we liked. And from there, yeah, I would see her tiles where she'd put them up other places they've got a

couple under a railway bridge near us so she's very much a local artist very much tapped into this area and turns out she grew up around here anyway so when we spoke I knew that she'd be interesting because she often wears a t-shirt that says unfit mother and unfit mother's kind of become part of her she sort of reclaimed it after her ex-husband used it sort of slightly against her when they were raising their children together uh so she thought no I'm taking that unfit mother I'll have it um but wow this conversation honestly I had my jaw like open with things she told me. So I can't wait to share it with you. It's fascinating. And I would say it's one of my favourites out of all the ones I've done. So I'm very excited to be putting it out now. And yeah, if you're ever local, if you ever

find yourself in sunny old Chiswick, go and seek out her house. Go and have a look at it it's um it's wonderful actually it's a sort of celebration of uh i suppose a sort of borderline suburban part of london uh but it's a celebration of that um and as you'll hear the reason behind it carries huge resonance for carrie and her mental health and the story of her and her children and And hey, we've even got a happy ending in this podcast too. Anyway, I hear the pitter patter of tiny feet. I will leave you to it. Mickey, give me that pen. Oh my goodness, he's running around the house with a felt pen with no lid on. You know that can only mean trouble. All right. See you on the other side. And please keep leaving me your comments. Your comments this year have really kept me going.

This podcast has been a gorgeous thing for me. I've had all my shimmery, sparkly, silly discos. I've had swathes and swathes of domesticity. But the podcasts have been really precious. And I'm already nearly, I'm halfway through actually doing series two. So that's got some treats as well. Anyway, I can hear another pitter patter, another bloody small person coming my way.

Honestly, I should probably just have a little soft padded room I just hide myself away in. All right, lots of love. See you on the other side. Here's Carrie. Thank you for coming to talk to me. I was really excited about the idea of talking to you for lots of reasons, but also it's such a nice reason that we know each other because we live, what, like eight minutes away from each other? I think it is eight minutes. And before I knew you, I knew your house. I used to walk past your house on the way to the train station that's near there.

And for people that haven't seen your house, it's covered in mosaics, front and back. And it's extraordinary. It's completely beautiful. It stops you in your tracks. It looks intriguing. And I remember I used to walk past it, even when we first moved to the area, and I'd have one of the little ones in a buggy,

and I'd be looking at all the writing and all the images. Do you think when people look at the house, do you think they can tell a lot about you just from what they see on the outside? I think both. I think in one way, so much of it is autobiographical, because it has my mother's name on it, it has my kids' names on it, it talks about all the things that I was passionate about.

But in another way, no, I don't think they can. I think a lot of people make assumptions about me based on my house or, you know, if you were to read the comments on the Daily Hate Mail, you know, there's a lot of assumptions that smells of patchouli oil or that I'm an old hippie or I mean I think people look at something and project a lot onto it I mean I used to always think when I made art that I was literally standing naked in front of people that they would be able to know my whole internal thought process yeah but as I've got older I've realized that's not true I just feel like what I'm doing

is very revealing because it is so autobiographical yeah but in reality people just project something onto it yeah I suppose it is a kind of two-way two-way street like that isn't it um it's funny when you said about standing naked it reminded me of this quote that my mum told me about the other day and I'm trying to remember who it was that said it originally. I think it was someone like Isabella Rossellini who said that acting is standing naked in front of people and turning round very, very slowly. I thought, well, it's so... Well, I think a lot of creativity is, a lot of that is,

when it's so, like, you know, driven by your own personal life and stuff. I do think, you know, when you put it out there, you feel very vulnerable. You know, you feel like people can see into your soul. Not with all of my work, but, you know, especially when I was at art college, I felt tremendously like that.

When I did my degree show and my parents were coming, I was horrified. I thought they were going to know all of the secrets of my life by looking at the art. And yet when my dad turned up to my degree show, he literally literally I did body casting then so all of my work was about body casting and was very very much about you know I just discovered feminist art of 85 and it was all very much autobiographical about what it was like

to be a female in in a college when my dad came he literally banged knocked on the resin cast and said did you make that did you that's That's not bad. That's not bad. You made that. And I realised, you know, I thought my dad was going to be able to see all of these things, all these topics that I was trying to talk about. But really, he just saw a body. He saw a mannequin. He didn't see any of it. Yeah, I know. It's funny. I think you can write about...

I've definitely done, I've written about people in songs, but actually people don't often recognise themselves from a third-person perspective anyway. It's very, I mean, it's hard enough to do it with yourself, isn't it, to be objective. So I think, yeah, recognising, your dad recognising what you were talking about with you, he probably saw the same bits of you he always sees,

if you know what I mean, because it's all the stuff you're looking for for and I think with my house it's just like I hope that people just see it as a kind of a you know hope I hope they just they just come across it and it's just this it's so visually in congress to the rest of the street it's just this bright colorful home I think you know most people see it as like, wow, that's, you know, that's, it's just a cool thing to see. Definitely. I mean, is that the home? So you've got three children. Is that the home that they grew up in? Well, it's the house. My father used to, well, he has property and he rented it out. He was like a Rigsby character because when I was

growing up, I'd always stand behind him like Rigsby, making impersonations. But basically, would always stand behind him like Rigsby making impersonations but basically he's a very strange person very much on the spectrum but he had all these properties and the house that house was the first house that my parents ever bought when they had my brothers but they moved there and moved to a house in Sutton Court Road which I grew up in okay but it was a multi-local it was a multi-occupied house with all bedsits and my sister moved there just before she was 18 and got a one-bedroom flat and then my brother had moved into a bedsit when I was 16 I was like I gotta leave I can't live at home it's torturous and so they agreed to let me have a bedsit so I live in what was now the toilet at the top of the house was where I moved when I was 16 oh wow and then I lived in every room as a bedsit

and then I lived there till I was about I think 19 and then my dad gave me a flat in Acton and then I moved to study in Leeds and I moved to Acton again and um but then when I had a child my daughter my sister moved to another house and I kind of inherited the ground floor flat and slowly I took over the front and the whole house but really it's the home that I've known since I was 16. Wow okay so did you did you have your babies living there? Yes as soon as I was pregnant I moved in there so that's the only home they've ever known. Ah so they've kind of they must find that that whole it has it's morphed and changed and evolved that must be also the sort of backdrop to their childhood.

It's really strange because they're all very different. My oldest, she hated it. She was so embarrassed by it. You know, she didn't really want people to know that she lived there. But my son's really quite likes it. And now I think, now it's finished and now they're much more a kind of, they kind of have a sense of pride in it now. But I think when they were growing up, it was, you know,

they were the freaky kids who lived in the freaky house that I'd given mohawks all to when they were babies. You know, I'd kind of, you know, I'd set them out to be different from the beginning and they went through that phase where they just wanted brown hair and to blend into the background and to become not known as living in the mad house in Chiswick but now I think they don't mind it so much now so they're now 22 22 nearly 18 nearly 18 and 15 okay um and that's a girl boy and a girl right so your your youngest two are still living at home yep and so is my 18 year old okay so

they've only just, well, my 18-year-old's just dropped out of Chiswick School, but my youngest still goes there, which is the school I went to. Oh, wow. So it's, yeah. It's not really how I thought. I always thought I would escape Chiswick.

I always grew up hating it. You know, I grew up around here too, and I did the same thing. And actually, when I was looking to move, when I had my second baby, when Rachel and I were looking, and he suggested Chiswick, I was like, that's the most uncool place ever.

And now I actually really love it, but I think 15-year-old me would be horrified that I'm here. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I desperately wanted to leave Chiswick. I saw it as the suburbs. I always wanted to go to Notting Hill, obviously, or Labrador Grove, or Camden. When I was growing up, Camden was the cool place to go to.

Yeah, that's where I moved when I first left home, actually. So I always wanted to leave, and then I did leave, and then I kind of went up north to study, and then I lived in Crewe for a short while, and then I lived in Acton. And then eventually, when I had a child, I came to Chiswick, and it was that classic thing where it's like, oh, it's quite green, actually, the schools are quite good, you know.

My mum always used to say that, I don't know why you bother rebelling, because by the time you're 40, you'll be just like me. And I'd be like, no, no, never, never. I'm never going to be like you. And it's like, I think she was a decade out, because now I'm 50, I do feel remarkably like her. It's kind of scary.

Well, maybe, do you think then, maybe what you've done with your home and making it so, as you say, what you've done with your home and making it so as you say stand out and with your little ones as well when they were growing up do you think you needed to have that sort of rebellious nature about kicking against things a little bit well I was kicking against my own family because my parents basically gave both my brothers and my sister a house for them to kind of do what they want with. And I was always told I couldn't have one or I wasn't considered really mentally well enough to have one.

I do understand why they might have felt that because I had a lot of time in my life where I wasn't very well, mentally not very well. And I can understand that they would have worried because I married a complete stranger after knowing them for one day. And I could see why they might be nervous about that but what happens with parents I think with my parents is even though I got better and weller they never really stopped perceiving me in a certain way and then for some reason they gave my sister two houses and so that she had that house and for years I couldn't really it wasn't in my name so in a way I felt like I was squatting my own house.

So putting all the mosaics up was kind of a defiance of, well, I don't own the house, I'll do what I like with it. I mean, now I actually do, I do worry what I've done because it's like I can't ever sell it. It's kind of ridiculous. It's kind of, the house is so much interwoven to my whole life and the way that I fit in with my family. But yeah, it's very interesting because I've been in therapy for five years for the last five years so it's quite interesting to

kind of re-evaluate all these things and to really understand that a lot of my anarchic kind of rebellion is a lot to do with that kind of against my own family, kicking against something within my own family and kind of unravelling that and seeing who you really are. So up until this point, because there's a lot to sort of unpick there, but up until this point, the therapy wasn't part of something that was going on. You mentioned mental health issues and challenges, so that wasn't a way you were dealing with it up until now no no i mean i had a like i've had i would guess two proper nervous breakdowns two times where i was nearly hospitalized and you know really my life blew up and then a

third time which was more considered because i think once you've had children the you know for me having children saved my life without a shadow of a doubt. I was on a very destructive path that wasn't really capable of looking after myself. But as soon as I had a child, it was like, I'm going to try and protect. I'm going to do the best I can.

And it wasn't an easy path. It's been a long, slow path. But, you know, like a lot of my girlfriends, I think we had children at a time where we would have gone on to, you know, we were of my girlfriends I think we had children at a time where we would have gone on to you know we were self-destructive mode and so you know it's been a very long journey my kind of sorting myself out you know I think this is why it's interesting being post-menopausal it's interesting to be in my 50s it's it's interesting now to be able to look back with that amount of

experience and to be able to look at it that amount of experience and to be able to look at it in different ways and analyze things and have a much better understanding of why I behaved in certain ways yeah and does the understanding sort of accompany being able to sort of forgive yourself these things you think and sort of what's what is that like to sort of look back I think it's because i think i was a i reacted to everything i think before therapy because people often i would never you know i tried all kinds of counseling and therapy and always hated it i never saw the point of it it's like i know what's wrong i just don't know how to change that thought process and so i thought it was very

pointless until i really engaged in long term for. You know, I was very lucky. I accessed low-cost two-year psychotherapy with where you go in with someone who's training to be a therapist. Okay. So you just literally pay for the hire of the room. Uh-huh. And so for two years, I was with this woman who then said, I'm not going to leave you at this point. I'm going to continue.

So for five years nearly, she's given me therapy low-cost. Okay. Because it's kind of a journey that we're both on and I think the only the main thing that therapy has enabled me to do is to it sounds cliche but to sit with my emotions it's enabled me to have feelings and understand that they don't have to overwhelm me I can sit there and feel something yeah and if it's if it's hysterical the chances are it's historical that you know that drama you know the drama of you know certain things in my past you know I've learned to be able to sit with an emotion I've learned to be able to distance enough to be able to think about it and once you have that ability it creates a much better healthier space for you

to explore things you know rather than be constantly overwhelmed by your emotions yeah and so I think that's been the greatest learning curve for me because the more I've enabled myself to do that the more I can kind of intercept something where normally I would be like crying or upset I've been able to distance myself and go hang on a minute why am I so upset yeah what's going on here yeah and so I think all of that therapy my therapist always likes to say I've been working on myself a lot you know which I do agree with but I think that's gone alongside with my age yeah I was going to say do you think this would is something you have to kind of is it serendipitous has to be the right thing at the right time a little bit? I think people don't understand how much the menopause shifts you.

You know, they don't... It's not something we talk about a lot. No, that's got to change, I think. I think, but the thing is, is that something so physical happens, on the physical way, it changes you, and people don't prepare you for it. And so some people always say, well, what's a menopause like? And I was like, well, you know when you have a period,

and you kind of... before you get cry, you cry because you see a Hovis advert or you're shouting or things, you become irate. And then a few days later, you'll have your period and you'll go, oh, God, that's why I was emotional. It's like being emotional for two years or five years or not knowing. It's that kind of emotional imbalance. two years or five years or not knowing it's that kind of emotional imbalance it's hard to know that it's to do with your hormones and to do with something going on in your body yeah and it's hard to distinguish between what's emotionally being driven by your body yeah and what's externally happening and what's just factors in your life yeah because i went you know i went in 2012 my mum died which was you know shattering and then i split up with my partner and the father of my two youngest kids and then

i think that literally pushed me into the menopause i think that it's very linked to our emotional being anyway oh that's interesting i hadn't thought well no i know two women i know two mothers who hadn't had periods for like maybe two three years who then had periods on being told that their children had died and i i didn't have a period for a year and a half and thought i was through it and then my daughter phoned me up to say she was going to get on a plane with mumps and i was so horrified thinking that she might you know what this was going to get on a plane with mumps and I was so horrified thinking that she might you know what this was going to mean that I had a period it was the only one I had within a three year period and I think people don't understand that you know when my mother died it felt like

my umbilical cord had been cut and severed and I do believe that there is something that we don't understand between mothers and children and and you know, it's so deep. Yeah. And I think society is so, culturally, we are so cruel to women, especially older women. Yeah. You know, we literally are telling you, if you're post-menopausal, you're not fanciful, you're not attractive, nobody's going to to want you you're going to become invisible you know yeah and so that's so even if you don't believe it even if you try to fight against that that's so around you all the time that you can't anesthetize yourself from that i think that process starts from the time you have your first baby or you know you've

been pregnant or whatever because i i personally have a massive problem with the term milf I absolutely hate it I think it's really sort of I think it's like a sort of pitying sort of a thing of like oh don't worry I I still fancy you even though you've had a baby like yeah shove off well this is the thing I think I think that you women should just have guilty as charts written on them because you can never you can never you know be enough or do enough or you know whatever you do you're going to always be you know so filled of guilt I mean I've spent my whole life as a mother being guilty yeah I'm always in awe of any woman that doesn't have I have met mothers that don't have guilt but I and I always think that I should be like that that's really inspiring but I don't that's not how I live my life.

Well, no, because I think society's moving forward and women can now do loads of things that they couldn't do, but society's judgment is still set back a generation. Yeah. You know, and there's just that internal guilt that, you know, I know that as a single parent and as one that's had to financially support my kids for the last six years at least, that I have to go and work and, you know, our household is dependent on me doing things

and it means travelling and I love my work. You know, I think if I hated my work, I wouldn't feel quite so guilty because I do love my work. But, you know, there's always that part of me that thinks, you know, I should be at home. I'm not looking after the kids. But if I was a man nobody would really say anything no it's definitely not not an even playing field I don't think at all and you know Richard and I talk about it and just in terms of the questions we get asked when we are working and I always I'm asked lots of questions about who has the kids when I'm doing stuff and I bet I don't know for you in music but I know for me that whenever they write anything about me,

especially in the Daily Mail, Hate Mail, they'll always say, artist, mother of three. Yeah. They'll always have my age and they'll always say how many kids I have. And, you know, you find me a cutting where it tells you how many kids a male artist has. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no, it's true. In fact, even name a male artist who's a single parent, who's famous. Yeah. I know. No, it's true. In fact, even name a male artist who's a single parent, who's famous. Yeah. I know. No, you're right. I can't think of anyone, actually. Or if they are a single parent, then they don't,

they're not, the emphasis is not on how they're managing to do it or if they have a night out, like, why are they having a night out or why are they going out dating? They should be at home with their kids or they should be being you know the perfect father it's actually and also because they do do things like kids they're seen as like oh well done you did things with your kids well i've literally just done this piece of public art for a library in bristol that celebrates span which is the single parents action network which was a really radical amazing group of women who got together, mainly working class.

You know, a lot of them were black. They got together and they formed a group and they set up this organisation to represent single parents. And over a 10-year period, they turned it into a national gallery, a national charity, and really affected policy. But, you know, when I worked in their archive, it was fantastic because they'd collected every newspaper clipping about single mothers and when you look at it and you look at the hatred and you look at the the way that we think about single mothers if you say single mother you think of someone on the dole you think of someone who's not working you think of a scrounger you think of a young girl who's got pregnant to just get her council flat i mean that's what's been pumped out all the time statistically it's rubbish you know yeah really the average age

of a single parent is 39 and over 60 of them are in work yeah and it's getting a lot worse because in 2008 you weren't expected to work until your first child was 16 but now you have to work when your first child is eight so think about what that does to the to a family unit yeah when over 60 percent of single parents are in poverty and 90 of them are women you know if you're a man and you're a single parent you're kind of like oh wow that's so lovely you know oh that's really lovely you know we we kind of pity or we think of it as a hero or we yeah you know but if it's a woman it's like you're you're you know we attack the female and they're the ones who take on the role of caring for the kids yeah i mean this and this isn't a comment on you know how well single dads and single mums are doing. It's literally about, as you say, the perception and what is thrown back at these women, single mums.

So how, I'm trying to get the timeline here. So when you had your first baby, did you plan on being a mum? Was there something that was in your... Okay, well, when I was 29, I mean, when I was 28, I had a complete nervous breakdown. I was working as a care worker at the time. And if I was honest, I was self-medicating with rather too many drugs and drink.

But I had a complete breakdown. I think I literally, sounds awful, but I really, really thought I'd never have kids. I'd never get married. I was like, the partner I was with just walked out on me and I just couldn't cope. And I was really, really guilt-ridden because I'd had abortions when I was younger

and I think people don't understand also that that can, for me, it just created this ongoing guilt, this kind of, you know, this feeling, oh, my God, I'm going to be punished, I'll never have children. I'd got to nearly 30 and I had that biological clock and it was all like I think because I'm a bit on the spectrum I have this very black and white way of thinking and so literally I had this complete breakdown and they were going to put me in a place called the castle which is like a expensive psychotherapy unit I was diagnosed with an extreme personality disorder,

which now you would probably diagnose as bipolar ADD spectrum. There'd be a different terminology, but basically I couldn't function. I was very unhappy. And I didn't really want to go. I did want to go, and then I thought, do I really want to go to this place for six months? Do I want to? I didn't think it was going to help me. I'd a documentary about it I was a bit freaked out and I was making art at the time and I had some work in a show called Disturbance Value

and there was another artist there and we met and we agreed to get married and have children and we did and two weeks later I was married at Hackney Registrar so sorry there's someone so you met them and you just after a day you were like I think we're gonna make that make a future for ourselves yeah because I was I didn't want to go to to the hospital I just I thought if I have a child I'll sort myself out and you know we were both really quite unwell and we did we agreed and two weeks later I got married at Hackney Registrar. And my friends brought cardboard cutouts. And we had Take That and Whitney Houston.

And we had Dogs as Bridesmaids. And I kind of saw it as a performance piece. It wasn't really real. It was like a performance piece. You know, I mean, he had a really funny Dayglo shirt on. And I had Mickey Mouse ears. And it was all kind of, yeah, it was what it was. But in reality, as nuts as that sounds, I had my daughter Poppy. Yeah.

And for both of us, we didn't stay together. We didn't even live together, really. But we had a child together and for both of us, it was our redemption. Yeah. You know, for all his faults he's been a good caring father and he loves his daughter to pieces and having my daughter was the thing that first got me onto a much better path I started doing community mosaics I started I just started doing mosaics at her school and then people saw it and that started in the entire career of doing community work and public art so this your relationship with art art's been there for

what from the time you were really young yeah i mean what i've realized is that my mother who was taught how to knit in the subway when she was four during the air raids on four needles making socks for soldiers wow I've realized now that she spent her whole life knitting you know knitting you know that was how her safe space was knitting and she was a ferocious knitter you know there's like a two-finger ferocious knitter no no she was I mean there's a whole story like you know those pens that you put a child in that you're supposed to My mother used to sit in there and knit with the four kids running riot outside. She told me she practiced benign neglect.

I was like, what's that? And she said, well, within a certain perimeter, I think children should be allowed to run free and make their own mistakes. But yeah, I mean, she had four children under the age of five and was 21 or 24 or something so yeah so I realized that she was a knitter and that really she passed that on to me I was always making things yeah very blue peterish do you know what I mean I mean I was yeah and so I always made things but I was always very insecure about my ability as an artist because I'm not a drawer, I'm not a painter, I'm a person who makes stuff. And it was always my place that I loved.

When I was at school, I loved the cross-stitch, I loved the clay. So it was always a place I went to, though I never necessarily think this is what I'm good at. I'm not a gifted artist. And my life has been all happy accidents. I ended up doing a degree in sculpture because I failed to get into the degree on film that I wanted but I suppose really now I think yeah I am an artist I need to create because creating is where I meditate creating is where I process

things creating is where I'm safe and I can always go to oh yeah no I don't think there's any doubt about the fact you're an artist I mean it's it's clearly so so entwined and how how you need to be seen how you need to articulate how you prioritize and process all the things that matter to you I think it's clearly from the time you were young been a place to put all that make sense of things I think it's clearly from the time you were young been a place to put all that and make sense of things. I mean, I wonder why, do you think there's a sort of elitism then in the art world that made you feel like you were sort of on the other side? Oh, yeah, definitely.

I've always felt stupid. I've always felt thick. I think now I can say it's because I'm probably undiagnosed dyslexic. You know, everyone I know says you're dyslexic. You know, and I think if you are dyslexic and you don't know it and you grow up in a normal education system, you just fail.

You're failing in the way that they're testing you. Completely. I've got friends the same, you know, like peers of you and I that have had exactly the same experience. Yeah, so I know now in my 50s, I can look back and go, God, yeah so I know now in my 50s I can look back and go oh god yeah do you know what I mean I'd have every diagnosis going probably but yeah

I'm definitely someone who is neurodiverse and is that the word I can't remember the other way probably but you know what I mean I'm definitely someone that doesn't fit into this to the box and that you go through a system that's always alienating you and so I always struggled with history of art I always struggled with all of that stuff I've always felt a bit like a philistine and I think now I know myself well enough to know that I rejected it all because I was scared of being seen to not know so it's that kind of like I don't care stick two fingers up of it you know you kind of reject something because you already feel an outsider to it but on the other side of that i had a mother that kept taking me around stately homes the whole time i was growing up you know i'd follow her around bored out my brains waiting

to spend my two pounds in a gift shop with my leather bound bookmarks do you know what i mean but you know i had that kind of background but there's another side that really resisted it who's always felt like the outsider yeah you know I feel like I'm in a mosaic world but I'm on the outside of that because I don't really I'm not really like the way they do master mosaics I feel in the street art world I'm in the outsider of that because I do ceramics it's not yeah you know I feel like in the fine art world I was in the outside of that because I did very political feminist work yeah I've always felt on the periphery of many different circles yeah but now I kind of love that fact I'll just take that as you know it's great because I've been able to spend my life creatively just following a path

and doing what I like and having had to be pigeonholed into anything yeah I was thinking when you're talking about the fact that it's so significant I think to me anyway from where I'm sitting like the fact that you've covered this this childhood home and these mosaics that are in one way it's quite rebellious and subversive because you've taken the place that was you know your parents your dad's place and you've made it like nope this is carrie's place and then it's also subversive but when you think about going around these stately homes and feeling like the outsider so you're looking at these places are very beautiful and there's expected code of conduct the way you behave when you're in those environments and what's allowed and not seemingly not allowed so you've taken a house that presumably your place down the road is similar sort of era to my house.

So it's sort of around Victorian arts and crafts when everything's quite proper. You know, Chiswick was home to the first ever garden suburb, you know, Bedford Park. There's historical little, you know, it's got that background to it and there's like, you know, the little blue plaques on things and, you know, there's a lot of people around here that really love the fact that this is Chiswick,

this is Bedford Park. And, you know, I don't feel like I fit into that certainly so can I imagine if you you know you already feel like that so again you've done that to your home you've gone like ah this is an old house yes but look at it now but then also what it also does by putting your family's names in there by in court it's also really celebratory and optimistic so it's about saying because it's actually maybe i might be overthinking it but almost as well when you're saying about the therapy and saying if it's hysterical it's historical well in a way the mosaics is like quite a predominant

it's it's quite hysterical isn't it it's really loud and extrovert and but it's also about history and also i think because it's mosaic there's something that tiling does that mutes that kind of, it stops being shouty and like angry because there's a certain bit where you have to appreciate the skill or the mosaics or the tiling, you know. It's kind of, you know, all of those times I was taken to look at the Victorian Albert Museum obviously had some, you know, it stuck in my mind

and enabled me to have quite a high ability to understand ceramics or to appreciate craft. Well, it goes back to, I mean, I'm thinking of like Roman mosaics. I mean, that's part of how the place, all the bath houses and everything how it always looked

is incredibly beautiful. And I suppose within the fact that you've made it your own and you can write it your own and you can write whatever you want and highlight whatever you want there's also a form it has to follow and a place where all the tiles have got to go in order to does it matter to you where the tiles come from where the ceramics are from in terms of like where you're finding things well no I mean a lot of it's just about finding the colour that you want to be honest so where do

you find your stuff I actually make a lot of the colour now because I get tiles and I lay a colour of anglaise on it. You can't get those greens or reds. They're very, very expensive and very difficult to make that can go outside because it's a high firing. So a lot of the colour now I produce myself. Wow. But at that time, I have to that the most of the lowest sections of my house were with tiles that I got that they were going to throw into a skit from Reed Harris I literally went there in my car going backwards and forwards yes and filled up my garage with

all these tiles which now you couldn't get for love or money now you have to have tiles imported from Portugal if you want to work on public art outside it's that difficult because people don't understand our manufacturing closes down and we lose the ability to even make things because we don't have them yeah and the tiles are they all the same are they sometimes things that you have bigger pieces that you have to break up no they all are I mean they're all literally the tiles that you'd make your bathroom and kitchen with and then smashed up smashed up a lot of it's printed within my own house there's loads of ceramic components that i've made all the ceramic components as well do you think that because it sounds to me like behind your this your desire to create there's

also a lot of quite highly skilled stuff you're actually well i think i think this is why i've been able to like grow into the idea that i am an artist is purely because I've got so skilled. I mean, I spent eight years going to Richmond Adult College three days a week, self-teaching myself how to apply image onto clay and how to do slipcast ceramics. You know, I spent three years at college. I've been very privileged in the sense

that being able to have a house to live in has enabled me to go and keep learning all the time and so i've done 15 years of ceramics i've done 15 years of mosaicing i've got a first class degree in sculpture i can pull all those skills together and endlessly add to them yeah and so i kind of invented my own form of mosaicing which is i call ceramic collage ceramic tapestry which enables me to print on all the tiles and then use tiles as a form of collage yeah and interweave it with all these stories and narratives and i suppose now i have it's great because i can do that with public work i can take all that skill and then try and put it in the

public domain in a way that voices as many people as I can and allow them to tell their stories. Yeah. Has it allowed you to find those kindred spirits? Do you feel like you're almost sometimes reaching out to the you when you felt like you didn't really? Well, I'm always looking out for those people who felt that they're voiceless. Yeah.

Maybe that's how you felt when you were... I've always, yeah yeah I always struggled with even speaking I mean I've always been plagued with tonsillitis problems with my throat when we first started when I first started doing uh community work with my two friends we'd go to these events where they'd show it and the mayor would come and they'd say would you like to say something and all of us don't know no I can't say anything I would be terrified we could never speak publicly but really I only became able to speak publicly because I got involved with like campaigning against the death row and campaigning

for my friends who were political prisoners and when I engaged in all of that kind of activism I became so passionate about talking for them yeah that I'd got on stage and I overcame my own fear and and just started doing it and that's what really started me being able to go around and give talks and lectures and and and just I found my voice for them which is why my favorite quote is the quickest way to happiness is to find a cause greater than yourself yes and so I think that's a lot of people will tell you that in activism or who've done things that they become so passionate and it helps them it really does it helps you to just be able to stand up and say something so you mentioned people on death row how did that become part of your

life oh because I was a community artist working at Croydon I think and I picked up I bought the big issue and at the back it said human rights it was an organization said um could you befriend someone on death row as a human act someone who has no family and friends and this is goes back to like 2000 pre the computer time a kind of an innocent time really where I just thought oh yeah I could do that. And funnily enough, I mean, I really was into, like, Silence of the Lambs. I had that misconception that I was going to be writing to a mass murderer. Wouldn't that be interesting? Someone on death row. I had all that preconceived ideas that most people have.

But I thought, yeah, that'd be interesting. So I applied and they just gave me a name and said, write to this man, Lewis. Yeah. And I sent him a letter and then I got one back about three weeks later and it and I was I'd just become a single parent to Poppy then she was about three and I remember the letter arriving and being on my mantelpiece and thinking oh my god what have I done oh no I must have felt weird like in your house I've written for someone on

death row what am I doing? This is like weird. And I didn't open the letter for about a day. And then I opened the letter and it said, oh, hi, I'm Lewis. I'll see you do mosaics. I actually did mosaics before I was in prison. I'm sending you a picture of someone that I think you would like. And, you know, instantly humanity hits you in the face. It's like a person that's just talking to you.

Yeah. It was like, wow. And from that letter, it was a five-year very intense friendship where we wrote to each other literally every week you know for the whole five years and I got a very rude awakening into what capital punishment means which means those with no capital get punished you know the statistics are frightening I won't go into it but it was just like yeah And I'm very OCD about things when I'm in something, I'm in there. So for about 10 years, I was very, very much active in trying to raise consciousness about death row

because I spent the two days with Lewis before he was executed. And then actually I was at the... You went there? Yeah, I was there. I was visiting. Whereabouts was this? This is Texas. Texas. So I was there for the two days

before he was executed and visited him. And that's why I promised that I would make a mosaic on my house, which is why it's the Louis Romare's wall is the back wall. It's all dedicated to him. And that's why I said to him, if you send me something that's plastic or metal,

I can incorporate it into the wall. So after he died, I got a letter that says from Hindsigned Way. And it has that pass, which is his prison pass, which he should never have even been executed without. So I don't know how he got that out to me. And then they stopped having them. But yeah, that's embedded in the wall. And then what happened is the guy that was in the cell next to him whose wife I knew because they'd been friends with Lewis I started writing to him for a year and she asked me to be

a witness at his execution so then I had to go back to Texas two years two years later and witness my he wasn't close to me like Lewis but he had become a friend but yeah I witnessed his execution so were you actually there with when lewis was executed no no with lewis i was with him for the two days and then they executed him the next day okay and with with um ash don joe amador i was there i was literally had to go down the green mile and watch it so yeah i mean it was all very traumatic but the thing is is that does it get any more i mean nothing can be more intense than that surely that's profound no and and the really kind of amazing thing with this story

is that texas is is a non-contact prison which means like when you get locked up you never have contact with your family again you know the only people who touch you are prison guards so like ash was executed after 12 years never touched his family from the moment he went in not even a mother's last final hold the only person who touches you is the priest holds your leg but texas is the only state in america that legally you can transport a dead body if you have your own body bag and so my friend good friend Nick Reynolds, who's in a band called Alabama Free,

his father was Bruce Reynolds, the great train robber, but he's a leading expert in death masks. That's what he does. So he flew out and we took, as soon as Ash died, within minutes, we got his death certificate that says homicide. We took him from the morgue that's attached to the prison, put him in a hire car, drove him for half an hour into some woods

to some cabins we'd hired out, took a door off of its hinge, put it on two camp beds, put him in there and made a death mask of him within an hour of him dying, which is very unheard of. In fact, the death mask looks like he has stubble, but really it was goosebumps because he was warm when we got him. So we did this thing that was very kind of ritualistic. Yeah. And so we made this death mask and then we brought it back to England

and it actually went on the front of the Tiki Love truck. So that truck that's in front of my house, it was commissioned by Walt the Plank for the first ever art car parade. So seven days after I'd witnessed my friend be executed, I drove through Manchester with 45,000 people in attendance in that truck with Ash's death mask on the top. And so it was like a deity, you know, we'd kind of. And so I think doing all that was what helped me, was like having this mission, doing this insane art project in this hope that we could raise consciousness. But the most amazing thing is that, you know, in 2014,

which is what, if it was, I can't do the maths, but 12, eight years later or whatever, it was in the Victorian Albert Museum as the star exhibit in their Disobedient Objects show. And it went to Australia. That whole truck was sent over to australia so you know what started off as a weird kind of idea of of mine turned into this really amazing project where i think we really did use him use his death as a way to try and humanize yeah the situation

there's uh that was absolutely incredible when when you went and did the death mask was it just literally the the two of you no i had two friends i had a friend who was filming and my friend linda who was my pottery tutor i was supposed to have another friend come with me and she said well if that friend doesn't come i'll be your number one backup and then the person couldn't go because their mother had a stroke and i said do you remember you said you'd be my backup so my poor friend linda who's my pottery tutor had to come with us and he had this it was an amazing kind of weird trip yeah but if ever there was a way that showed you how art and creativity can kind of you know go to the darkest place and bring out a bit

of light and try and do something with it and And, you know, that's how I protected myself from all that horror. Yeah. Of what I witnessed. And did it... Was the crime they were in for at all part of what you were thinking or was it just literally the fact of the death row? No, because they absolutely... Both Lewis and Ash went to their graves

saying that they were innocent. Lewis was undeniably innocent because he was 70 miles away valuing a plot of land when it happened. But what you have to understand is a lot of people in death row, especially Texas, are there on the hearsay evidence. You know, there's nothing that links them to the crime.

Ash had a terrible life. He'd been in prison most of his life. He'd been, his earliest memories were of, like, being in a cage. Grew up, like, literally being in a cage and his stepfather holding a gun to his head. He'd had an appalling life. But his solicitor was so convinced that he was innocent that she mortgaged a house and tried to get reports done.

I mean, there was a lot of stuff that said, he you know the eyewitness said it was a very tall arab and he's a very short mexican i mean you know and i i just i don't know i don't know enough about his case but i know that he was protesting his innocence in his final breath i mean the the thing is as well like no matter what you know i just no i mean matter what I ended up writing to five people on death row and some of them had done the crime but as soon as you got beyond the crime and heard their stories it's just pitiful

I just don't agree with I just don't believe in the state should be able to take a life because I don't trust the state enough to do anything no and also even if for people who are staunchly for it the moment one innocent person is is murdered that way the whole thing doesn't it their argument falls apart i think so you know if you're if you're someone that does believe in it which you know i actually

have never met anyone that does but do you remember they used to put a series on tv um life and death row the bbc yes yes i, I obsessively have watched most things. I thought they were wonderful, actually. Really stayed with me, really haunting. And, yeah, you just saw time and time again these people where the odds are just stacked against them from the get-go, really. I remember one really haunting one where this guy, he was only in his 20s,

and he'd been, I can't remember what happened initially, but he was on the run from the police, and they were throwing down the spikes across the road, and he'd swerved to avoid them once. And when he went round the second load of the spikes, a policeman was standing there, so he'd hit this policeman. And he wasn't even trying to protest and fight his case. He was just like, this is just what's going to happen to me. I've killed a policeman, and now this is just what's happened.

And when he was talking, he was so calm. I couldn't decide if he was either the most sort of, this really wise, incredibly centred person, or if it was, you know, the most sort of ridiculous, like, come on, no, fight your case. I couldn't work it out. It's one or the other. My experience of writing to quite a lot of prisoners

is that that intense isolation and that kind of situation they're in, they tend to go different ways. A lot of them become over-religious. You know, they turn to religion. Some of them go completely insane. And some of them just have to become kind of spiritually awakened people. They have to learn to accept something, you know.

And I also have written to the Angola Three, who are like the longest-serving men in solitary confinement. I write to a guy called Zulu, who's in his 40th or 41st year in solitary confinement they're black panthers and revolutionaries and they are all like the most amazing people that you could ever write to because they've literally you know have they get up and do yoga and then they do exercise and then they read books and they've really kind of trained their brains to exist in this place. And I used to ask Robert King, I was like, how could you do 33 years in solitary confinement?

And he literally said, time changes, you know, time alters. You know, I think these things really happen. I wrote to one guy that could astro project. In fact, two of the people I wrote to talked endlessly about how they could come out their cell, they could fly, they could go around their town and then come back into their bodies and so if you think about it if you're so deprived if you sit in a cell if you lock people up for that long yeah certainly puts lockdown into perspective yeah i know i mean it really did you know what when we went into lockdown one of the things i started reading was um albert woodfox uh autobiography called Solitary,

which is about how he survived 44 years and 10 months in solitary confinement. And I literally, I know that. So when I went into lockdown, I'm thinking, look, they could do 44 years, I can do six months. You know what I mean? I literally, I use that as a kind of, it's all going to be okay. So running alongside this very intense and meaningful relationship you're forming with Lewis, you also have your little girl turning from three to eight. So what would she be aware of, of all that, do you think?

I don't think she was very aware of... Well, she was, she must have been, because the thing is, is that when Lewis died, Well, she was. She must have been. Because the thing is, is that when Lewis died, his girlfriend and her twin sister came... Oh, no, his girlfriend came to stay in England with me just afterwards. So I didn't know her. I'd met her once just prior to the execution. But she asked to stay with me and I said, sure, if you meant something to Lewis, you mean something to me.

And she actually arrived on Christmas Day at like 10.30, and I was thinking, oh, my God, I wasn't expecting that. And she had an instant connection with my daughter, Poppy. So was it just the three of you there? No, no, no. At that time, I had met the partner that was with my two other children. Okay. And also at Christmas, I have a kind of open policy

of anyone who doesn't have anyone to go to would end up at mine. So it was, you know, several people there. And so she formed a quite strong relationship. And then Lisa and her twin sister, Linda, came over. And actually, they asked if Poppy could go to America to stay with them. And so for some part in the holidays, and I agreed because I thought, wow, how fabulous to go and spend a couple of weeks in America. So she did. But because of that, my daughter, when she was 11,

she went to visit Herman and Albert. She went to visit them in Angola prison. Wow. So she visited Black Panthers when she was 11 and 13 on her own. And she also went to death row with the twins to visit people. So I think she's very acutely aware of all these things in fact when she was four she went to an orphanage with me to work in a terrible orphanage in romania so she has been open and seen things that my other two

haven't because i was single with her till my son was six years you know she was six when i had my second child okay and so she was very much me and her. And, yeah, she was exposed to lots of things, which I often wonder whether I should or shouldn't, you know, when you think, you know. But to her credit, she's an amazing woman now who's, like, you know, got a first in politics and philosophy and now was on a teach first program and, you know, really wants to.

It sounds like it was pretty pretty informative for her like formative rather like she ended up being interested in politics and philosophy these are all things that are really chime in with all those experiences and also i think you know if children are safe when they where they sleep and with the person that's looking after them i think they can cope with all manner. The world has got lots of stuff going on and if they always feel like they're... It's about safety, really, isn't it, first of all? Yeah, I mean, I definitely followed a bit of the benign neglect parenting skills.

In fact, my mum, I said to her, oh, I think I follow the same type of parenting as you. And she said, no, your parameters are way too wide. But, you know, I think this is the trouble. trouble I mean I used to be very guilt-ridden about my parenting and ways that I've been but now I've really learned to just to do the best I can in the here and now because that's all I can do yeah you know and I've always said to my kids look you're just what you're just evolving you're one generation you're trying to evolve look at granddad see where I come from you know I've done the best that I can and I'm always trying to do the best I can and I've always

tried to be honest at least to be honest about my failings and say look I know a hands up I wasn't great at that because I feel in my family there is not that honesty it's come from a generation where people didn't talk about their neuroses or their fears. It's that war generation where you put your head down and you get on with it. Yeah. Well, funnily enough, I think a lot of the things you've spoken about, about how you've raised your children and the topics that come up and how you've done it, are actually more what's encouraged in parenting now.

We're encouraged not to just model success but model failure, to talk about mental health, to talk about all these things and to not helicopter them too much and to let them have freedom. Well, yeah, because I think everyone's reacting to the, you know, what you do is you overcompensate. I mean, I know I've overcompensated because, you know, I grew up in fear. I grew up in a world where I was scared. I was so scared, you know, that I'd get into trouble.

I mean, my dad banned me from running when I was young because I fell and got sand in my eyes and told me I couldn't run. So about six months later when I ran and fell on a glass bottle, I didn't want to have to tell him. And when I did go home with blood pouring down my knee, he literally said, you've been running, haven't you? You've been running! I was like, oh, you know, I lived in a world that was very kind of unpredictable.

And you could get into trouble. And my dad was very scary. And so I really didn't want my kids to live in that world of fear. But what happened is I kind of overcompensated and went to this world where they don't fear anything and realise that it's quite difficult to bring kids up if they're actually not scared of you in any shape or form or there's no consequence or, you know. So I think generationally we tend to try to overcompensate for things no I'm definitely the same as you like that because um I don't think I'm not very good

with consequences either in that I want to raise kind people and I hope I put the you know there's like a moral compass in the house that's really strong and a good core of that. But the trouble with, I find I sort of sympathise too much. And like you, I have sometimes quite strict parents. And so I've kind of gone the other way. And now I'm always sort of rooting for them. But then when there's five people and they're all like these spirited, fearless young people who have, you know, want to tell you everything about what they're doing. And sometimes I'd be like, can we just tone down the independence for this week, please? I'd like to think, because now I'm older,

and so my kids are slightly older, that they go through that teenage years, it's really troublesome. And my therapist taught me that all I had to do was hold that space and just let them have that anger, let them take it out on me, because I'm the person who can hold that. And that was very hard for me,

because all my dad ever did was shout at me and so that became my natural default. But I've learned to do that. I've learned to hold that space and learned that they do grow out of it and that actually, you know, my daughter is really amazing now. You know, she gave me a lot of trouble when she was younger. And my son, not so much so, but he was very angry. He used to shout at me a lot.

Now that's all just, you know, it's gone. You know, it has. You know, it definitely gets better. Well, also, they shout. Sometimes they take it out on you because you are a safe person who's not going to stop loving them. You're not going to go away. It's very hard being the single parent.

It does come back to that thing that you're the mother and the father father you're going to shout at them and tell them off and then comfort them so how much of your parenting did you spend as a single mum I would say really with my youngest for the first three years I was mainly bringing her up on my own and then I met my partner and then I was with him for 13 years and then we split up in 2014 and so from 2014 to now I've been really bringing them up on that on my own and do you feel that was he still supportive from the wings and no it was very toxic and was very kind of like it's been he does now but I mean I really I have to admit that for many years I felt extremely embittered that I ended up as the full-time parent. I really struggled with it.

I really kind of thought, because I didn't even want to be a full-time parent. I had these children, knowing that at that time my partner was much more of a house husband. He worked from home. He was quite happy in that role. I was able to be free to work and travel and do the things I wanted to do.

But when we split up, I was in a position where I had no money. I was able to be free to work and travel and do the things I wanted to do but when we split up I was in a position where I had no money I was broke I was in debt I suddenly had three kids he wasn't helpful because he was in his own distress but he was seriously not helpful for the first year at all so it was just overwhelming you know it was overwhelming especially at the same time as going through the menopause yeah and so I just think I spent so many years being embittered you know why do I have to do it all I've got to do all it's like having the whole weight on your shoulders yeah but really now I feel lucky that I had that time really so when you look back on it you sort of yeah I think COVID's really helped with that okay really helped because for six months i haven't had to travel i haven't had to go out to places i haven't felt obligated to go to this private view because i should be seen or you know

there's a lot of obligation especially when you're creative and you don't know where your next job's coming from so you always spend a lot of time like thinking i should do this i should be seen here you know but for six months that just disappeared half my workload disappeared you know i've had six months where i haven't traveled or gone anywhere and i think being in the family unit for that long with my kids you'd have those touches of christmas where it'd be like should we actually play a game together i mean there weren't many opportunities there wasn't many times that actually happened but it did I think it was a healing experience to be spend that amount of time together yeah without any of the distractions that are normally around well I guess as well your kids being that bit older as well as it's a different shape of things isn't it definitely you know when they're younger it's just it's so relentless I've just found it so like relentless every day there's

so many people to think about and do and and you know I did I struggled with motherhood no doubt so how did your work and your art fit in when the kids were little and you were on your own how are you I've got more water oh great I've got you on as well so thank you um well when poppy was young i i have to admit i had a lot of help i think one of the things is is when i did my work was a lot activism and when it was about things that draws a lot of people and i had a very good support of kind of fellow mothers that's nice you know so i think my kids have been brought up very communally yeah that's a good way isn't't it? You know, there's pros to that and there's cons to that. You know, the negative is that everybody feeds their kids chicken nuggets and chips and pizza because it's the only combined meal that you can get all the kids to agree to.

Yeah. So, you know, there's a chaotic side to that, you know, and so we would farm our kids out a lot. They'd all stay. There would be endless pizzas and film nights. farm our kids out a lot they'd all stay there'll be endless pizzas and film nights and i and i have a lot of really i mean amazing people that like my sister had my daughter so i could go to romania to work in an orphanage and then i'd have friends come and so they have had a very communal experience and but now that's really paid is brilliant brilliant, because now, like, when my son turned 18, he has these role models, he has these people in his life

that have known him since he was a child and love him, you know, and can come, and I think that's really helpful. Yeah. But, you know, with Poppy, I worked a lot in her school. I worked one day, I worked voluntarily at Southfield School, and I was doing community work and she would be brought we me and my friend Cameron would bring our three kids and they would traipse on a bus to Croydon with bags of tiles and we'd work with the community we kind

of absorbed them into our work a lot yeah but with the other two it's slightly different my my partner was worked from home a great deal so he was really at home a lot, and I was literally in the studio mosaicing. And is he an artist as well? Yes. He does kind of commercial art, advertising and comic art. Okay. And Poppy's father also an artist, is that right?

Yes. Yes, but now I'm staying well away from artists. I've learnt my lesson. It's the disaster for me. Yeah, because we haven't yet talked about it. Yes, but now I'm staying well away from artists. I've learnt my lesson. It's the disaster for me. Yeah, because we haven't yet talked about it. So the last time I saw you was actually at the end of July. And then since from then to now, you've actually, when I saw you at the end of July, you were a single woman.

And now you're an engaged woman. Yes, I know. That sounds ludicrous. No, I like it. Given the stories I've told. But yes, I am now. I'm making no judgments here, Carrie. I think it's brilliant.

I can see how happy you are. No, no. I mean, I've literally found my soulmate. I mean, I literally cried for the first couple of weeks because I just couldn't believe it. So how did you meet someone new? Just through friends or dating apps? No, no.

It gets worse than that. It's worse than that. I actually met him on hinge okay it's quite funny because you know when I met you and we were we met I was really quite happy I'd literally got to a stage because of the corona I think when we went into corona I was panic stricken you know beforehand I'd pulled my kids out of school I was buying up potato seeds I mean I don't know what I was thinking. I was planning on feeding my kids, you know, some potatoes.

And I bought a dehydrator to kind of prepare food. It's like, really? Yeah, I know. It's nuts, isn't it? You've got to incorporate that into your life right now. I bought a jar of strawberries that must have cost me about 150 quid because that's all I managed to dehydrate. It's like like this takes hours

man i'd have been so much better if i just bought frozen apocalypse coming yeah yeah no i was preparing it was gone it had gone to like when the wind blows do you know i mean if you've been right i'd have been around there knocking it please can i have a potato i mean i literally i kind of think i went into a really chronic i i did i mean the last time i saw my before the lockdown and i saw my um therapist i was all masked up with gloves crying i didn't want to touch her and i'm like oh my god the plague i'm you know i kind of went into it like that and i was watching all the fear porn you know death coming across from china to italy to you know. And then after a few weeks, I just, I realised I couldn't function like that. And my therapist was really good in telling me to look at the opportunities

that this time was presenting. And so, but literally I turned off the telly. I limited my social media. I got into my work and I just buried myself into a different place. And one of the consequences of having more time is that I started walking to the park and taking my dog out. And I literally became quite happy. I think we discussed the fact that I'd been doing the silent disco in the park.

Oh, yeah. For an hour every night, I'd be listening to rock follies and musicals. And I felt very childlike because that's what I'd done when I was a child, dance in the rain, singing in the rain. And so I'd got to quite a happy space. And just before in August, my friend said, well, let's go down to Hastings. They've got these bands playing on a pier.

And I was thinking, well, yeah, go anywhere for music right now. I just want to see something. And so we went to Hastings. I went with my friends who were an old couple. And I don't normally travel with couples. I usually have so many single friends and I travel work-wise. But I found myself in the back of a car with a couple who were very couple-y. We went to Hastings and we sat on the pier and I was thinking,

hmm, I'd quite like a boyfriend. I'd like to have someone to go in a car with. I'd like to go somewhere. Having already kind of said to myself, I don't think I'll ever meet anyone I don't think that's going to happen now I'm too old and really do I want to because it's destabilizing for me and it you know probably better on my own because I can regulate myself better and all these things and convince myself that that's was the way it going to be. I sat on this pier in Hastings and thought, you know what, I'd quite like a boyfriend and went on Hinge, which is a dating app.

Yes, I've heard of Hinge. And I have spent periodically over the last six years going on Hinge or Too Many Fish or whatever it is, Tinder. You know, I'd looked at these spaces and I'd been like, oh, it's just so depressing. It's just, it is. It's soul. I know a lot of success stories through these things.

I know, I know, but I'd always find it remarkably soul-destroying. I'd never seen in six years anyone I even remarkably fancied. Nothing. Do you know what I mean? I'd drink a bottle of Prosecco

and after another half, I'd think, they live 10 miles away. You know, they've got nice eyebrows I kind of find a reason to like them and nothing I'd only ever spoken to two people in

six years I'd spoke to two people one turned out to be a barrister that when I locked him up he was about to get his landlord was taking him to court for spending all the rent on prostitutes and hookers and I was like oh god I had to delete my whole tinder account left like why which are ways to get rid of them i literally deleted my delete okay fair enough yes i deleted the whole fuck sorry i shouldn't

swear but i deleted i deleted the whole account and so i'd had another time i nearly met a guy with a mobility shop who wanted me to go on a yacht and i was like i don't want to get stuck on a yacht it was just all fraught for me I think because it's hard to negotiate that thing it's terrifying so this is a very long story but so I was sitting on um the beach in Hastings and I thought oh go on tinder why not you know because these two are sitting there kissing and literally went on went on hinge and just saw this face and just thought, wow, I could kiss him. I could kiss him.

Wow. I could kiss him. You know, I just had this kind of thought, wow, I've never even seen, you know, because I didn't think you could really think that about photos, but I liked what he'd said. Yeah. I really loved what he said,

because he said, you're my kind of weird um if you like left of center art and music and films are passionate compassionate i care about people in the world but are a little bit daft oh that sounds really good fun what a good description as well what a nice thing to write yeah those things are really hard to write aren't they yeah no no mine is pathetic mine were rubbish and so I kind of looked at this and thought that's kind of me I was going to write would you accept batshit crazy but I just kind of went like and it's that thing where you like something you throw it out and you think well they're not going to like me back anyway and then literally within about a minute I just got yo this person just talking to me oh and normally when people talk

to you you get into about three sentences and you think well where what do I say next but we just started talking yeah and we just haven't stopped I mean we just talked for two days until we met each other and then we facetimed until we met the following weekend and we haven't stopped talking or laughing since and I think there's such a recognition in both of us that yeah this is what we always wanted and we found it and we're going to treasure this and we're going to you know this is going to be forever and so how do your kids feel about it all are they they're I think my oldest is rather uh my oldest is being like an adult

so she's asking all the kind of well she's just like well you know that's I'm happy for you but I'm going to reserve judgment I'm just going to see my younger two are really accommodating of it

oh that's so nice yeah yeah they are they're really kind of they're fine about it I think because they can see I'm so happy yeah

and okay I have I'm known for being impulsive. But in a way, the only thing I've done is got engaged, which is like for me is just that thing that says, yeah, I'm committed. Yeah. I'm really committed to you and I'm prepared to tell the world. And so there's this, we've committed to each other. We can't possibly get married because we're in COVID time.

And so that probably won't happen for a year as you say it's a commitment and so i think i think they can see how happy i am and so they're fine they're fine i mean my son said i don't mind as long as you're happy mum that's the main thing yeah and so yeah i mean it's really i mean i feel like i'm waving a flag right now for the over 50s and for menopausal women because it's you know it's the opposite of what you're told yeah it's the opposite that you're you know to find someone and he's my toy boy i mean that's everyone i know said go younger carrie go younger and i was like oh i don't want to go out with anyone younger but he's three days younger than me so it's really weird we're so close in age yeah we're three days apart. Who grew up liking the same things?

So our point of reference is obscure punk bands like the Empire. Do you know what I mean? We have that very similar sense of humour. We're very similar. It's strange how similar we are. We do make jokes about being with our strange twin. It's that stranger that feels familiar. There is something that is undeniable.

Yeah. And I'm one of these people that if I feel something, I'm going to feel it. Yeah. Yeah, well, no, I think that is flying a big flag, actually. And when you find yourself so sort of happy and with this real excitement about the future, how does it feel to look back on things like, you know, your home?

I think I read it took 10 years to cover your house. Well, it's 20 years. 20 years? Yeah, it's 20 years and it's weird because my house has always been multi-occupied, even for the last... All the time I've lived there, I rented out the top of my house to my friend Tom, who's a musician.

I have my assistant live there. I've lived there I rented out the top of my house to my friend Tom who's a musician I have my assistant live there I've had Airbnb it's always been this house but not really a home even though I say home is where the art is but you know I finally have met someone who wants to move in and wants to create a home I've always wanted someone to be able to do that with but really I've always had to take that responsibility myself I've not really found that person for all kinds of reasons but yeah it feels like oh my god you know I've now got a future a kind of future that I always wanted which was with someone was to create something to to to become you know, to grow old with. And now I suddenly have that. Having literally got to the point where I'd accepted that wouldn't happen. Yeah.

That's what's so magical about it. It is magical. Because we've both got to that point, I think, where we thought, you know, well, it's probably not going to happen. But it's, you know, I don't know how many friends you have of my age, but trust me, there isn't that many men of my age that even want to go out with people of my age. It's so refreshing to find someone

that actually wants to find someone as a soulmate, to find someone they connect with, wants to grow old disgracefully with. It's so unusual to find someone that's emotionally i mean for me i've tended to go out with people that are not very good emotionally expressive people because my father's so autistic and incapable of even empathy and i think it's only because of all the years of therapy i've done that i've managed to be able to break out of that tendency of recreating our past to literally find someone that's very similar to me, that has all this love in their heart

and been desperately wanted to show it somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. It is magical. And I think, I mean, you said about, you know, my friends your age, but I think whenever you find yourself, particularly as a single parent, I think whenever you find yourself particularly as a single parent i think whenever you find yourself the other side of a relationship that you were hoping was going to be that future i think you always feel initially like well i probably have to shut that bit of me

down and also it's quite it's what's really weird as well if you think about it i had all these these relationships with the two people i had kids with but once you're post-menopausal, you know, you're in a very different world. There's no fear of having children. That's not ever going to happen. It's kind of freeing in a way. You can be a bit more selfish about what it is that just works for you now. Yeah, I think the relationship becomes centre stage. It's just us.

We have children. We've experienced that. We love our children to bits you know but this is almost like this is our time we can you know we can make plans that don't involve all that yeah you know this is someone who the same as me loves to travel loves to go places loves to do things and so it's really kind of refreshing it's really it's weird because in some sense I feel more like a teenager than I've ever felt because you have that, you know, the racing heart, the kind of want to get home. It's like so all-absorbing.

But in another way, it comes from kind of an old age. You know, I'm old enough and wise enough to be able to say, yes, this is what I want, this is what I need, this is fantastic. Yeah. And I think one of the reasons why why one of the things I did when I in first met um Sean my fiance my first met him is that I and that's the first person I've ever met that I didn't know on a day ever I've never met anyone in that way but because I'd had these conversations where I felt so at ease yeah went to meet him, I was very careful to not drink.

I was very careful that when we first met to be very present because I know that my natural default position is to get nervous and to drink and then you can't really negotiate, you can't really go back on your emotions and say, well, how did I really feel because I was drunk? So I was very careful at the beginning of this to be able to see that it was for real yeah no that's well that actually takes a lot of courage as well because that's and it's the only time in my life behind things when you're young but this is the only time in my adult life that I've got into a relationship sober yeah and straight and not now we can kind of have a bottle of prosecco it's lovely but all i'm saying is i it's the first time in my life that i was conscious and did that and did that after

talking in therapy and understood these things which has enabled me to have a totally different relationship to past ones yeah it must be amazing actually because it sounds to me like everything has sort of happened exactly the right time and you've you've been on such an extraordinary journey firstly with your relationship when you left school what level was your art at then and did you study oh no I left Chiswick school with o-level maths and o-level English and o-level art okay and I went to Hounslow Borough College to do an extremely unique course called FIDAS that was running from probably from the 70s FIDAS stands for films English drama and art studies so I left Chiswick where I was bored to death and I went to you know

and it went to Hounslow Borough College I don't know if you've seen it but they used to have the old I don't know if they're still there but the old Victorian glass house it was all old victorian buildings and i studied a level english language and literature but i studied oa film studies a level theater design a level theater studies and music appreciation which was sitting in that greenhouse with someone called indio kilburn who smoked a pipe and let us bring in records and we could appreciate them. Sounds great. It was. It was a real hippie, bohemian arts course. Yeah.

Because I'd been obsessed with Alan Parker's Fame, the musical, before the TV series, and this was the closest I could find to a performance arts degree. And at the time, there were 12 of us on the course. Wow. And so we did this amazing course. You know, I went from bored at Chiswick to suddenly be taken to see the Marcus de Sade presentation

by Middlesex students. And it was all like, you know, things that really weren't quite shocking at that time. And introduced to the Theatre of Cruelty, which is all like shocking the consciousness. It was all like, wow, this is amazing. So I went there for two years. And they do have a FIDAS reunion.

There's lots of famous actors and actresses and people that work there it's quite a unique little course I think it still runs but I wouldn't hold me to that so I went off and did all this drama and theatre and was like had my mind open to all of this and I actually left there to go to a degree in filmmaking at the Polytechnic of Central London got into a very exclusive filmmaking course, but then discovered acid and dropped out after six months and literally became a tax collector. Oh, okay.

So I was a tax collector for a year and decided I hated it. I just did these awful jobs so I could travel around America, travel around India, travel around Nepal, then came back and thought, I want to get back into art. So I went to the art foundation at kingston polytechnic mainly did sculpture but i wanted to do filmmaking again so i applied to do filmmaking at sheffield didn't get in and they said to me well apply to leeds second choice so i went to leeds with a film and they said we don't do film anymore they closed

down two years ago and i was like, I'm not going to get in. So I said, do you know what? What do you do? They said we do printing, painting and sculpture. I said, well, give me a hammer and give me a chisel and I'll do bloody sculpture then. And the guy opposite me just accepted me because he thought I'd be like a thorn in the side of other people.

But yeah, I literally got onto a degree in sculpture and ended up doing sculpture for years. So yeah, I mean, I just think my life has been all these happy little accidents where I've just followed this little path. Yeah, but it sounds like art's always been the thing you've gone back to because it sounds like you were still studying that while you had young children and through your relationships and stuff. So the art's sort of like one pillar and then your kids are like

another yeah and it took me years to really recognize how much my mental health was dependent on my creativity yes i would say in the last few years it's it's become too much of a workaholic i've gone to that space when i took out drugs and drinks and other things i just you know i'm too happy to go into my workspace and and you know I've realized a lot that it's much more about balance which is why it's great to suddenly be in a relationship where there's this amazing person that's that can help me do that yeah because I tend to just mass produce work even if I don't need to work I'll just produce the stuff because it kind of justifies all my vices.

I can sit there, I can smoke, I can drink, I can watch Netflix, I can buy stuff, I can spend all day on eBay and just produce this work. But I've realised that that's not necessarily that healthy for me. It's much more healthy for me now to try and work normal hours and stop and stop at the weekends. And I think, like I said, going in covid enabled me to have more of a space and see that that was even possible yeah that's interesting it's like what you're saying about you know the whole premise of this is spinning plates i think as a working single

parent that's you get so used to juggling these watching them break ones smashing over there trying to do this one that you get locked into that it's even hard to know how to get out of that you know and i got very much into that right i'm gonna have to do all the cleaning i'm gonna have to do this i hate cooking i hate all this i do this um by eight o'clock in the evening i'd go into my space which is where i'd go to make things and i'd go and then i won't stop till three or four in the morning because the creative path is such that it might take you three hours to get to the point where you're happy with the flow of what you're doing and so then I'd be permanently seat deprived because I have to get up the next day but I

think I did that so much that Covid came along and stopped that and enabled me to go actually I don't mind cooking when it's the only thing I have to do yeah I quite like walking the dog when I've got the time to do it. It was like finding that time and realising that all these things aren't that bad. It was the stress of money and it's the stress of time and it's the stress of juggling things. Well, there's a nice metaphor as well,

the spinning plates and then them smashing and then you literally pick up the plates and then mosaic them. Yeah, I know. All those broken pieces. Someone recently accused me of, what was it, writing on plates and then mosaic them. Yeah, I know. I mean, somebody recently, someone recently accused me of, what was it, writing on plates and spoiling them. Oh, no. But yeah, you know, I think it's, I really like that metaphor because I do think that as a working mother,

you are spinning those plates emotionally as well as physically, you know, trying to, you know, do the job the best you can or if you're a creative person to create your best work you know you have that passion and yet somewhere else there's this child that needs all this other child or there's these constant demands made on your time yes and and I used to work in my studio and felt so guilty about working in my studio long hours when i became single parent that i started working from home but that becomes a nightmare because they don't seem to recognize that your office is your office yeah like it's 24 7 it's the same when the schools phone me up in the middle of the day and i'm like i'm up a 22 meter scaffolding and doing public art i don't

care if my son's late i mean yeah you know there's no especially it's like i was thinking phone their fathers why are you phoning me all the time why me you know there's this expectation that you're always going to be available for your kids you know they constantly knock on the doors and so it's very hard to have a work divide if you're working from home yeah i think i mean i i definitely always agreed with that but this year's really been this sort of cartoon exaggeration of that um i wanted just to talk briefly about your t-shirt as well because your top says unfit mother oh yes it also says bring back pubes i spotted that as well that's a good badge

um the unfit mother thing is something i've seen you write on other things before. What's the sort of significance of it? I mean... Well, there's always a story behind everything. But at the time that I was splitting up with the father of my two youngest kids, we were in a lot of, like, you know, it was toxic and it wasn't a very pleasant split up. But there was a time where I was financially and emotionally

and physically bringing up the kids. And he wasn't a very pleasant split up. But there was a time where I was financially and emotionally and physically bringing up the kids and he wasn't. But he sent me an email where he said, how would you feel if I made a piece of art and called it The Unfit Mother? And I was thinking, you don't get to do that. You don't get to call me. How can I be anything other than an unfit mother when I'm trying so hard to do all these things? You can't know and so i was so angry about that that i thought you know what i'll

take it i'll i'll use that i'm gonna use that and so i got my friend uh laurie laurie bell aka lady muck to make me a patch because she often makes patches in embroidery and she made me unfit mother and i wore it on a hat and we did it at the art car boot fair yeah and it became her best-selling patch because there was a recognition in people that they liked it because they saw you know that you know they feel it there really is with a lot of women feel that kind of tone that kind of you're unfit which which is something that's projected onto women that would never be projected onto men you know it just isn't in the same cultural way in the way that we view things and so after that I just really you know I started making a whole series of art and I'd call all of

it unfit mother and so now I've even got t-shirts that you can get at the art car boot fair I'll have to get one of those yes yes they're going on Sunday to the art car boot fair. I'll have to get one of those. Yes, yes. They're going on Sunday to the art car boot fair. But yeah, so I kind of, in a way, I just was so annoyed about him being able to say that to me from a position of where you're not even dealing with the kids. That, yeah, I kind of took it on as my kind of alter ego. Well, I'm glad because that would make me angry too. And I think, yeah, owning it like that is actually really cool.

But also highlights the fact that, I I mean from where I'm standing anyone whenever people say to me oh I don't know how you do it with your kids I'm always like let me get them all to adulthood and then you can give me a high five and now you're you're basically pretty much pretty much there with yours and I think what you've also done and listening to you talk, and I'm going to let you go now because I feel like I've been really, really nosy, but I'm sort of realising, and I don't want, this isn't me being overly twee, it's like a genuine thing I have. If I can create kids that are capable of loving and being loved, I actually think that's a massive deal.

And listening to you and all the things you've been through and, you know, obviously your very challenging relationship with your dad, how you've been made to feel about yourself, the fact that you're now in a place where you know you went to meet this new partner and you went there sober and you've gone there just as you and wanted real clarity you've you've basically got the what i think is the definition of a successful life to be at the point where you can say to someone, I love you and I can allow you to properly love me. Because the relationships you described before don't sound like they were maybe as loving in that proper way. No, they weren't. It wasn't.

It wasn't. Because there was... You're absolutely right. Because the point is that I think we both realise that I love him as he is and he loves me. I've never felt so loved in the way of truly who I am. And when he met my oldest dearest friend, Susan, the one thing she said is,

the thing that makes me the most happy is you're the most yourself with him. Ah, yeah. You know, and I am. I know that. I know that he adores me and I adore him. And so that's, you know, that's not something I'd ever thought was possible because I've spent my whole life feeling really unlovable, so unlovable that I used to smash my own head up, you know,

so unlovable to such an extreme point. And it took me so many years to unravel that. And it took me five years of therapy and nine months in AA and all kinds of things and a pandemic to kind of come out the other side and go, do you know what? I quite like myself. I've done all right. So it was literally at that point

where I managed to meet that person, which is, you know, it's great because everyone loves a happy ever after, don't they? They do. And it is a happy ending. So thank you. And I'm really happy for you. I can't wait to see what art will come out of it. But it sounds like you're going to have lots of adventures. Oh, well, thank you and i'm really happy for you i can't wait to see what what art will

come out of it but it sounds like you're gonna have lots of adventures oh well thank you for letting me talk to you it's been great brilliant really brilliant thank you carrie how would you think of that see i told you it was fascinating how amazing all that death row stuff i mean that oh just sometimes you have a conversation with someone and you end up telling loads of people about it and that is one of those i was like oh my goodness you have to hear about this story of carrie who lives near me and became pen pals with someone on death row for five years and then yeah making the death mask and all of that extraordinary but actually you know out of that that thing that

Kerry said about finding a cause greater than your yourself and your own as a way to help your mental health that really stayed with me as well um I think that is actually a really important thing and actually I know I've seen it close hand with people I care about who've gone through difficult times and then they put their energy into helping someone else or getting involved with something locally and it sort of turns around the emphasis of stuff for them and really helps so that really stayed with me too and yeah what a woman I love it I just it really is such a privilege to be able to record these interviews and to have these chats with people and then to share them with you so thank you so much for giving me this forum um and what else can i tell you about this week uh

my house has been turned into well my kitchen actually i've never ever decorated in my kitchen before in my life and it looks like a flippin very low budget christmas themed tv show i don't know if you'd remember, there used to be this programme on telly called Get Stuffed where all these students would do cooking and it was very messy and it was on at like two in the morning. It looks like that. It looks like students have made a Christmas programme and they've just stuck up any cheap old tat they found in a skip.

In fact, I was walking around with one of my beautiful little Christmas trees. I was doing a... This is a weird one. Richard and I were doing a DJ gig this week for a Christmas party. They wanted it done live, even though obviously everybody watching it was virtual. So we brought to the location

where we were having it being filmed to have it sort of beamed people. We brought along a few props, including a Christmas tree, and someone saw me with it and said, where did you steal that from? And actually a lot of my stuff does look like I've sort of stolen it out of, yeah, some bin next to a shop

where they have bad taste. In fact, that brings me on to what Kit said about it when he saw the playroom, and I said, what do you think of all the decorations? And he said, it looks like you're doing a tutorial on how to do Christmas decorations, but the person doing the tutorial doesn't know how to do it. I think that sums up pretty well.

Thank you, Kit. Anywho, next week is the last podcast of the series. We have reached that point. Another 10 done, which means next week is number 20. And next week is, oh, some gorgeous, gorgeous girls called the Nervo Sisters. It's the first one and the only one I've done where it's been two other people, but it's interviewing, chatting to identical identical twin sisters Mim and Liv Nervo who are massive DJs but I've also um both become mums to little girls within a few months of each other but there's quite a lot of heartbreak in there too and uh yeah I'll probably have to do some sort of, um, warning before that one, really, because there's a lot of stuff that goes on in that chat. Uh, it goes quite deep and, uh,

it's quite emotional. Uh, yes, but don't worry. The happy ending is they have their gorgeous girls and they are lovely women, Mim and Liv, just like Carrie had her happy ending with Finding Romance. And on that note, I'm going to leave you until next week. And yeah, hope you're feeling all right. Sending some festive cheer and lots of love from my house to yours. See you soon. Thank you.