Rachy Duffield

One of my mother's more unintentionally amusing insults, 'Sex Crazed Urbanites' was the label she gave my cousin and I when we lived in Norwich. No idea why. Probably because we were both unmarried young women with jobs and boyfriends. In a city.  I created the pink neon ribbon because 'Sex Crazed Urbanites' sounds like a good name for a terrible 1980s female punk rock band. The ribbon is tied around a neon stationery box containing neatly printed words: also insults my mother hurled at me, usually if I attempted to dress vaguely fashionably, or go out to any unapproved event or venue. Of course, I never knew which venues or events were approved or not - that was entirely dependent on my mother's mood at the time. The stationery box was inspired by a matchbox of words we found in her jewellery box. I can't remember the exact words, but I remember they were nasty. The matchbox was tucked into one corner of the jewellery box- which, incidentally, was filthy, f...

Much of my current work is autobiographical, dealing with issues of familial and emotional abuse, personal identity and the fragility of ego. I am currently working on a series of purses and boxes based on objects discovered in my mother's house after her death. This image is the inside of an embroidered purse entitled 'Come and Tell Your Mother You Love Her'. Generally speaking, my work focuses on the tension between traditional female archetypes of folklore and fairytale, and ideas of femininity and feminism in contemporary society.  I work in mixed media with an emphasis on textiles, using machine and hand embroidery to embellish appliqued, patchworked or quilted pieces.  The blog is written to give a little context around each of my pieces of work.  Having 'bottled it' on the first day of Art College nearly three decades ago I have recently returned to finding and developing my voice in visual art by joining a post-grad art course locally at Artpocket studio....