Interviews

Exploring motherhood in art with 'Milk Art Journal'

Exploring motherhood in art with 'Milk Art Jour...

Katherine Oktober Matthews speaks to Alice Ellerby about her project Milk Art Journal, which delves into work by artist-mothers about motherhood... “Motherhood in art is often otherised – somebody else speaking to a perception of motherhood – and because of that, it’s often about expectations rather than experience.” Milk Art Journal, edited by Katherine Oktober Matthews, explores artworks by artist-mothers about motherhood. Across three volumes, Milk presents a picture of motherhood from the inside, to challenge the centuries-old tendency in art to exclude the lived experience of mothers. Through candid and diverse expressions of motherhood, Milk offers “a better context of what motherhood actually is, and not just some context of idealisation”. The three volumes are organised by theme, the first of which is Chores and Transcendence. When she began thinking about the project, Matthews explains that the idea of contradictions quickly emerged. “A lot of mothers might be commenting...

Exploring motherhood in art with 'Milk Art Journal'

Katherine Oktober Matthews speaks to Alice Ellerby about her project Milk Art Journal, which delves into work by artist-mothers about motherhood... “Motherhood in art is often otherised – somebody else...

Kitty Hagenbach on the importance of learning to listen

Kitty Hagenbach on the importance of learning t...

A psychotherapist with over 30 years’ experience working with children and families, Kitty Hagenbach is a firm, kind voice. “Parenting won’t always be easy, it won’t always be smooth, but if we’re willing to really own the part we play, and we’re willing to learn more of who we are, then it’s a wonderful journey.” Hagenbach launched a new podcast this year, How Not to F#*K Up Your Kids, hosted by Katie Goldsmith. The title calls to mind the first line of the Philip Larkin poem ‘This Be the Verse’ – “They fuck you up, your mum and dad” – which crawls into my head from time to time as I wonder how I’m inadvertently doing this to my children. Hagenbach has a brighter take on it. She describes the 10-part podcast as an invitation to enjoy parenting, which takes us from pre-conception to teenagehood. It is compulsive listening. “My...

Kitty Hagenbach on the importance of learning to listen

A psychotherapist with over 30 years’ experience working with children and families, Kitty Hagenbach is a firm, kind voice. “Parenting won’t always be easy, it won’t always be smooth, but...

Kate Barron shares her epic journey of motherhood on the move

Kate Barron shares her epic journey of motherho...

Kate Barron met her partner, Chris Lewis, three years into his epic charity walk around the entire UK coastline. She has been walking with him ever since. As they near the finish line, Kate speaks to Alice Ellerby about living the life she loves... Kate Barron was a teacher for 10 years in East London before she gave up her job to pursue her passion for adventure travel. A year later, in August 2020, as the constraints of lockdown eased, she bolted up to Scotland “on an impulsive whim” to do her own version of the North Coast 500. On the final day of her trip, she walked to the bottom of the Whaligoe Steps, near Wick, and found Chris, an ex-paratrooper, on a six-year walk around the entire UK coastline in aid of the military charity SSAFA. “I don’t know what I think about fate,” Kate says, “but he’d...

Kate Barron shares her epic journey of motherhood on the move

Kate Barron met her partner, Chris Lewis, three years into his epic charity walk around the entire UK coastline. She has been walking with him ever since. As they near...

An Artist of Hope: Angeline Braidwood talks to Emma Skeet about positive agents of change

An Artist of Hope: Angeline Braidwood talks to ...

"My passion and my energy is to inspire people to make a difference,” Emma Skeet tells me on a sunny afternoon in her garden. We are sitting under a homemade pergola. The chairs are vintage and upholstered with her great aunt’s bedspreads, and the table we sit at was a gift to Emma from her son, made from a reclaimed door and filled with shells. Emma’s life is surrounded by art – the salvaged, upcycled and pre-loved. She was inspired by her artist parents to make a difference and, looking back over her career to date, there is no doubt that everything she has done has been in pursuit of making the world a better place. Norfolk-based art activist Emma Skeet has just made the leap from being employed to working for herself and entirely for the benefit of the planet. Her community interest company Systa (Share Your Story Through...

An Artist of Hope: Angeline Braidwood talks to Emma Skeet about positive agents of change

"My passion and my energy is to inspire people to make a difference,” Emma Skeet tells me on a sunny afternoon in her garden. We are sitting under a homemade...

Alice Ellerby speaks to space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock

Alice Ellerby speaks to space scientist Maggie ...

Maggie Aderin-Pocock is an award-winning scientist. She has had a fascination with space for as long as she can remember and one of her earliest dreams – which she still hopes to fulfil – was to travel to space. Over the course of her career, she has spoken to over 400,000 schoolchildren to share her love of space, inspire the next generation of scientists, and to give all children, no matter what their interests, an awareness of science and the critical role it plays in enabling humans to make good decisions about the way we live on Earth and how we take care of our planet. In her latest book, Am I Made of Stardust?, Maggie answers some of the brilliant questions children have asked her over the years as a way of introducing young readers to the Universe, our solar system, and human space exploration. The book is fascinating,...

Alice Ellerby speaks to space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock

Maggie Aderin-Pocock is an award-winning scientist. She has had a fascination with space for as long as she can remember and one of her earliest dreams – which she still...

An interview with artisan growers at The Wild Zinnia

An interview with artisan growers at The Wild Z...

Just over 18 months ago, The Wild Zinnia moved on to a plot at The Elms Farm, on the outskirts of Bristol, 50 metres from the JUNO office. Before then, three shipping containers sat on this modest patch of partially tarmacked land. Now it flourishes with beautiful, fragrant British flowers grown for the ever-expanding sustainable cut flower market. This is all thanks to the hard work of Debs and Roz, two friends who set up the business during lockdown. It all started on an allotment in Bristol. Debs and Roz have adjacent patches where they had been growing vegetables for years. At the end of one growing season, they experimented with growing chrysanthemums, dahlias and zinnias for the first time, and fell in love with their intricacies. They wondered whether they might be able to sell them, and found there was real interest in flowers that had been grown locally...

An interview with artisan growers at The Wild Zinnia

Just over 18 months ago, The Wild Zinnia moved on to a plot at The Elms Farm, on the outskirts of Bristol, 50 metres from the JUNO office. Before then,...