My name is Poppy and I am a visual
artist originally from London, and working and
living in Glasgow. I came up to go to the Glasgow School of Art and have never
left because I love it so much. I use mainly textile printing as my medium, but I also like paper printing and sewing.
Next year will be my 20th
anniversary of being diabetic. It feels
like a long time. About four years ago,
I went through a stressful period. It
was during my final year at Art School and my sugar levels were going bananas -
but I knew I had to make some work for my degree show - but I felt so ill and
so consumed with all this diabetes nonsense. I had just read Yayoi Kusama's
book called ‘Infinity Nets’ where she talks about repeating words because the
repetition takes the fear out of them, so I just sat down and started writing out
my blood test results: I sat at my desk for about a week, and just wrote out
numbers. And somehow I liked it and it
made me feel better. So then I started printing the numbers. Then I started making those printed numbers
into clothing. And here I am four years
later and I have just finished a commission from ‘Shape Arts’ essentially based
on drawing out numbers and using them as a way of communicating the intrusive
nature of diabetes and how it affects every aspect of your life.
Working on art/design work in relation to my diabetes
made me understand what I thought about having a long-term condition, because in
order to make a good project, I had to sit down and think about it. in With
most creative people, they think about their projects all the time so I guess I’ve
now been walking around spending a lot of time thinking about how I feel about
it.
I don’t like being diabetic: I wish it would go away.
But it won’t, so for now I think it’s a good subject to focus on. I think creating
my work about it will hopefully help bring more awareness to Diabetes Type1 and
to the impact that invisible Disabilities have on people’s lives in
general. I like printing and making
things and looking at colours but I think whether or not I was diabetic I would
like that stuff anyway - it’s just the thing I think I am supposed to be
doing. Creating and making things always
makes me feel better, so I guess if the intrinsic value I get from making
things can rub off onto how I feel about being diabetic, it can only be a good
thing.
November 22nd- December 22nd is Disability History Month, with this year's focus being on disability and art. Do
you use creativity in a way to express or help you cope with managing your
condition? If you do, I would be really
interested to hear about it: leave your thoughts in the comments below!
