I am a visual artist who makes drawings, sculptures and installations by transforming common household or garden materials. I am interested in the creative practices of women and how they are valued, especially the intergenerational transmission of culture and lore. This connects to my own struggle to reclaim domestic space for reflection, research and work. In this work “Hestia’s Kitchen Table” I made charcoal and used it to make drawings of my mother and earlier generations of women in my family, around a kitchen table, celebrating the value of their labour and their solidarity. Other drawings reference work by artists Martha Rosler, Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Suzanne Valadon. I made the charcoal by carbonising household implements. The charcoal brushes, cooking utensils, and mending tools are still recognisable but have become drawing implements. The charred tea caddy belonged to my mother and was one of the many tins I used in the carbonisation process. Below the table I discarded the charcoal fragments and dust as I completed the drawings. Inspired by memories of my grandmother cleaning the grate and setting the fire every day; and by a photograph of her grandmother knitting; I connected them to the ancient goddess of the hearth, Hestia. Re-imagining her, not just a keeper of the flame like Brigid, but as having the power to carbonise organic matter; in both a creative and destructive process. She can both devastate and preserve the material culture of the home; transforming household utensils into mark making tools. So housework becomes impossible and I am empowered to make a new myth of the hearth.
