Our Journey
I’m Roseanne and this is my Mum, Martha. Together we are two generations of artists and we are both in University.
The story of how exactly we got to this point is a long one, full of blood, sweat and tears, however the story of the last couple of years is an amazing one.
My Grandad, Mum’s Dad, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He didn’t want anyone to know except for us, and we looked after him. At first he would stay in his house a couple of days a week then stay with us the rest of the week. As it got more difficult for him to be on his own we decided he needed to move in with us. The problem was that we had a two bedroom house, so the search began for a three bedroom.
We eventually found one and moved in! One of the problems with alzheimer’s disease is that big changes can speed up the deterioration, so when my uncle passed away, he got worse. Then our dog passed away at the age of 17 (so he was a big part of the family) he again got worse. And finally moving to a new house, even though it was needed, caused a further deterioration. Shortly after moving in he forgot me for the first time.
It got harder and harder to care for him. Mum got a small grant to start taking a local art class which gave her room to breathe and be Martha. I started doing an evening class at Brighton Met, we didn’t know at the time how much this would change everything.
A while later I received a letter from Greater Brighton Metropolitan College, it was a generic ‘Have you considered a BA Fine Art Degree at Northbook?’
Well no I hadn’t considered that!
Originally I was going to put it off and inquire the year after but after a discussion with Mum I realised if I didn’t inquire now, I wouldn’t do it.
I emailed the tutor to see if I could come and look at the campus and find out more. She suggested I bring along some art work, I was not prepared for this and brought some old art in a plastic bag! That morning I was trying to print out a picture I drew of our old dog Joe but I was having computer issues and the only image of it on my phone had our MarthaRose watermark on it (thankfully!)
It turned out this meeting was actually an interview but after talking to the tutor we thought it would be better for me to do a foundation course first to get me back into education.
The tutor asked if MarthaRose was the dog’s name, when I said its actually the name of me and Mum’s art facebook page she asked why Mum wasn’t going to do the course, I said ‘I don’t know, ask her!’
Now we have both finished an Art & Design foundation diploma, me at Northbrook and Mum at Brighton and have started our BA Fine Art together!
Roseanne
Resin
I had been wanting to try resin for a while and first got the opportunity to try it at college… I fell in love! Then lockdown happened so I couldn’t go into college to do it, we now have a spare room so I thought I would try it at home with Mum and bought some resin from Resin8. We both fell in love with process of resin, the mixing, adding colours and watching as the resin has a mind of it’s own!
We kept creating, and creating, and creating!
We had plans for a craft fair but as that was cancelled again I thought the best thing was to make a website to sell our creations (we have a LOT)
