S4, E3 Marilyn Fontaine

Marilyn Fontaine is a mix media artist based in East London. She creates magical, intense and witty narratives in her artwork with her mystical overtones. The episode was recorded on the 20 October 2024.

Website: https://marilynfontaineart.weebly.com/
Instagram: @mjfontaineart

Podcast details:
Podcast email: artiststalespodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.artiststales.net
Instagram: @artists_tales_podcast
Threads: @artists_tales_podcast

Transcript

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 Welcome to Artist Tales, the podcast that features and celebrates artists from different walks of life. I'm your host, Heather Martin, and in this episode, I'm chatting with Marilyn Fontaine, who's an East London mixed media artist. Welcome, Marilyn. Welcome. Hi, I am Heather.  It's great to have you on the podcast.

So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do artistically. As you said, I'm a  mixed media multidisciplinary artist, um, based in London, born in London as well, and I'm a mid. So, I've been working as a professional artist since 2016, even though I was trained in art back in the, like, 80s, in art and fashion, fashion designer.

And then I worked for a company, a production company, in fashion. And so, you know, rewind impacting now. I work with painting, audio, film, I think that's in production, producing. We have a filmmaker, a director making documentary film, but I would say my day to day practice is painting.  And what sort of topics or areas do you kind of focus on as an artist?

Because I was looking at your website, so just tell me a bit more about kind of what you focus on as an artist, you know, in terms of content. So my, um, so it's really, there's two themes that naturally has run from my art practice. And the first one is, Most of my painting, my, when I first reconnected with my art, was around the Sacred Feminine.

And to be honest, actually, my work is around the Sacred Feminine. It just includes heritage, um, a heritage angle. And so, when I speak of the Sacred Feminine, it's kind of mystical. It's a hybrid of indigenous aesthetics. It's So it's mainly really based on an African aesthetic, but it will have different nuances from different cultures.

So I do a lot of women, very intense looking women, very beautiful women, adorned women, and they may have some headdresses or they may have, I tend to use a lot of gold halos. So there's a kind of Christian, Christian, Iconography coming from there, because my main practice is mixing the sacred and the mundane and allowing women that look like me, who I never saw as divine when I was growing up, actually be captured in their divinity.

So I would mix that with collage, so old pictures of elders, my mom, family members, or just women. So very old pictures from like 1930, 1920, 1960. And I would create, like, halos, or kind of  repurpose the pictures on a collage so they look much more than domesticated, you know, like, much more than just women in lovely dresses, but actually divine beings.

And I think I'm trying to capture the divinity within a, um, a mundane, everyday, domestic context, if that makes sense.  It does. And what draws you to the kind of sacred, the feminine, the mystical? Like, you know, what draws you to that? Well, um, from the age of 21, I, um, used to experience panic attacks. And that was after leaving, um, My art life, so working in fashion and art and then going into an office, I think that it really affected me.

So, I started to experience panic attacks at 21,  and so it made me research and look at  life. This wasn't just life. So, I came across a book by an author called  Shakti Gawain called Living in the Light. And it was very spiritual, didn't have none of the Catholic elements I was brought up into. And it, it was very esoteric, it was based upon Eastern philosophy.

And what I loved about it, it was, as opposed to Catholicism, was that they were different gods and goddesses that were held in high esteem. Whereas in Catholicism, it was just like, you know, Our Lady, which is beautiful as well, but there wasn't enough, I didn't see enough women. And so my search for, for different, um, religion and learning about the different goddesses around stories.

I loved books like Women Who Run With The Wolves, which talked about indigenous stories. And so I just, I started to work in healing, um, as a healer and a space holder and a massage therapist. And it took me more on a spiritual journey, learning about different Eastern religious systems. And then obviously I started to learn about Egypt, Africa as well, indigenous African practices.

And there was always a woman that was held in high esteem as a goddess. And so I just, growing up in the seventies and eighties and nineties, there was I didn't see enough of that, especially in terms of black women, and so the mystical stories of the hero's journey, you know, always a wisdom, always wise.

And what I love about the mysticism, it  shares about how we are all divine. We're all divine beings.  It really speaks to my soul and I think it comes through to my paintings and I think that it helps other people connect with something within them.  That's, and I find that very interesting, because I think, you know, so many people these days, well, I say these days, I think throughout history, you know, what I'm hearing from you is a struggle to identify, I guess, with, you know, whether it's a divine or divinity you know, something mystical, because you don't see yourself in it, and I think that's, you know, I, I do sense for many people that's a struggle.

You know, I, I grew up as a Catholic as well, and I find it really interesting to hear that journey, and it sounds like you were kind of seeking out or on a journey to kind of find divine things or mystical things that you could identify with. Yeah. Definitely, I think that, you know, going to school in a convent, it wasn't, it wasn't really helpful because, you know, and also being born into the family of Caribbeans that came from the Caribbean to England, and just, you know, women having their own mysterious life, but not being able to live that every day.

My parents had to work in factories and work really crazy hours. And cope with racism and cope with money and, and I just think I was just born very, you know, a child that questions. I think I was born mystical. I don't know when I, you know, like I always, you know, children always had an imaginary friend.

I always was always questioning another reality. I just was a child that never just accepted the mundane, which, but in another aspect, the mundane is really important for me. Because it grounds me, but I feel marrying the two, like why, you know, the word domestic goddess is so important because  I don't feel that, I think everybody deserves to be seen in whatever context they want to be seen as, but I believe everybody deserves to be seen.

I believe everybody deserves to feel devotion or be, or be devoted, you know, um, I think maybe it's the lover in me. But I think that makes the world go round and I think we don't have enough of that anymore. Ethic is so practical and it's, it's throwing out the mystery. We need, we need mystery.  And I find that very interesting, and I guess, you know, those ideas in some ways are new, but what also came to mind is, you know, in the Quaker tradition, you know, when you're talking about the divine in people, there is kind of a saying of, there's that of God, or there's that, you know, if you're not into believing a God, there's that of the divine in other people, you know, and that's kind of what I'm hearing a bit from you.

And with my studies, you know, I spent so many years working With different systems, especially the Daoist system. Studying with Universal Dao, uh, which is an Eastern philosophy. It's, it's not a religion. I do believe in God. I believe in a God. Um, maybe not the Catholic version, but, you know, but I believe that we're all part of that God figure.

And we are all divine. How can we not be?  With the things that we do, like walking, talking, you know, basic human things that we, we do. I think, how can we not be divine? I just can't see it. You know, we, man, we're capable of creating such beauty and in its, you know, in a reverse side, capable of such destruction.

But the things that we can transform with our hands, our voice is, is, you know, it's amazing. So how can we not be divine?  Very true. One thing that also came to me as you were talking is, you know, your family's heritage is Caribbean, sadly they did face racism. And I'm just wondering, you know, you did touch on a little bit of they had to work in a factory and that sort of thing.

I was just um, wondering whether there was a kind of a tension, both culturally and, you know, spiritually, with your family and, and kind of a very white dominated family. British society. Well, I think that my mum, very strong spiritual outlook, and I'm, I mean, right now I'm on a, I'm at a residency, and I'm, I'm doing work around my own journey, so I'm doing an all day piece of work around my upbringing, because I'm actually doing a residency in the place I grew up in, the area, and I'm thinking a lot about that, and my mum was very spiritual, so my mum came from Dominica, the Caribbean, and strong Catholic, really, really religious.

But  what she doesn't understand is that a lot of the practices that, I mean, Christianity came obviously because slaves came from Africa and settled in the Caribbean and some people were indigenous to the Caribbean already. And my mom has that in her, in her, um, background. I think it's, Kalinago, which is indigenous people.

So, but there's certain practices that Caribbeans do, even though they, they think it's Catholic. It's, it's in the African religion and system is embedded in that. And it's not until I studied I did like a year course in anthropology or ways of seeing and it's not, not until I did that course, I realized that a lot of the practices that they're embedded.

So my mom was very, very spiritual. She always had a little Catholic altar with all these statues that didn't look like me funny enough, but she still loved her Catholic statues. Uh, always prayed, always had the candle lit, always, you know. Did the novena, you know, observed all the, the holidays and all the prayer times.

And I think that really helped me anchor in a spirituality and a connection with the inner world. But I feel that because they were so busy and because they were so busy surviving on, you know, in life, um, working in the factory, one's going to work, the other one's coming in, making dinner for us.

cleaning the house, getting ready for the next day. And we didn't have computers and, you know, delivery and stuff like that we had now. The house was run really, you know, quite organized, like a bit of a, you know, like a bit like, not an army, but you know, everything was in its place. And so, you know, As much as my mum, her Sunday was her church day, and during the morning I would always see her kneeling at her altar and praying.

I think she had an interior sacred life, but it wasn't vocalized or it wasn't internalized as she is divine. I feel that. Especially for a lot of Christian based religions and people that, you know, from the Commonwealth and Diaspora. I feel that their worship is more worshiping something outside of their self, although they feel God in their heart.

It's not God. I don't feel like what I pick up from my mum, I think that there's much more of a respect to God being an external force that they must serve, as opposed to God really being within us and us being an aspect of the Creator. So, to answer your question, I think I picked up a lot from her devotion.

But I think the work of me having to develop an internal relationship to something bigger had to come from my experiences and my own search for meaning. Like that, you know, my own search for meaning, you know?  Yeah. And it sounds like quite an authentic expression in in what you do artistically. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's so funny because I spent a lot of time holding space, a lot of time working with people, coaching, running workshops, teaching and embedding a lot of my spirituality on my personal development ethos into my, you know, everyday life and.  I was working and I was really bored and I just started to create journals.

And that's when everybody used to be on the computer, like blogging. And that stepped up my art practice. And I was around a lot of women that was just creating from their heart. And I feel that if I didn't have the work, I feel that my work is a physical manifestation of all the women I've worked with in groups. 

My own spiritual practice and, but I don't think I would have been as confident if I started continuing art at 21 and didn't seek myself spiritually. I think it would have been a different practice, whereas I lived it. It's like I went away and I went on this hero's journey, like Joseph Campbell speaks of, and having all the trials and tests and everything, and my artwork is returning with the elixir.

And I feel, I mean, I do love depth psychology as well, but. I feel that that is what my work is, that's what my role is, and that's what my work is. It's like a walking document of experiences from a collective, not just my experience.  It sounds very deeply personal as well, so it sounds like your own experience, but also experience that you've collected, perhaps, if I can phrase it that way, along the way. 

I really, I think it's really, um, I think that's a hundred percent. I think that's really a good point because I mean, most of the time I'm really high energy, right? So I'm really like, Oh, you know, blah, blah, blah. As I'm speaking to you, I feel very relaxed, very calm. It has been a long day, but I do feel very grounded and, but it's interesting because I find when I create my art, there's been a lot of aspects of me feeling disassociated.

So even when I'm creating it, I'm in it. So I'm, I'm in it, I, you know, it's flowing, it just feels like it's coming from somewhere else. But when I stop it and I look at it, I'm like, wow, you know, I feel disassociated sometimes, most of the times. And it's interesting you say it's deeply personal, and a lot of people have said that to me, but I'm looking at it through a lens of it's the collective.

But this part of my artistic career is about me having to share me, you know, my experience through my art and owning it. And I can own myself in service to others, but it's a very vulnerable place, really admitting. You know, but this is deeply personal. I am standing in that space. So when it's a spiritual, you know, when I'm in my spiritual place, it's fine because spiritual is a big connection, but I feel like owning that aspect of my art practice is a very vulnerable place, but it's also a place I want to go to.

I want to be challenged and I want to be disruptive. I want to inspire. All those things, I want to embrace them because I think that is What makes us human is to be able to embrace all parts of ourselves. So it is deeply personal and I feel talking to you now, I really just need to accept that, rather than say yes, it is my stuff, it is my experience, you know, these are pictures of my mum, these are pictures of my family, and, but actually, it's really a me saying this is me. 

Yeah, and I think it's, you know, the art that is deeply personal is deeply, it comes across as deeply authentic.  And I find that quite often I'm drawn to art that's deeply personal because it's kind of you, you know, as that person. I think it's interesting because Frida Kahlo is one of my favourite artists.

And, um, I remember seeing her hair in a Tate, like, I don't know, 20 years ago. I'm not sure, actually, if it was 20 or 10. No, 2004, I would say. So  it's probably 20 years ago. Oh, my God. So, she must have been obviously dead by then. But her exhibition was at the Tate Modern. And I remember going to see it with a friend.

And a friend says, What is it about her work that you like? Because it's all pictures of herself. And  I just think it just moves me. It just, there's something about her work that just moves something inside of me. And, you know, I've been brought up, you know, especially in modern life, you know, don't be too indulgent.

And people use the word narcissistic now. But, I think, when I think about her work,  it's, it's, There was just something about it. There's so much in her story, there's so much in her portraits  and I feel like that's where my art is going to be going next, even though I'm not a very good portrait.  You know, I don't, I can't sit and do a portrait, but in my, from my mind, I can do, you know, I can paint really good pictures.

But I think that when we, as humans, when we look at something, it connects with something inside of us. And so we can resonate more than me probably doing a painting of a woman that has got nothing to do with me, but is practically really well painted.  That's true, and I think, you know, that, that has struck me that, you know, there's some art, you know, that I've looked at or experienced, and I thought, technically that's very nice,  but it doesn't resonate in the same way, you know, and if I'd seen a piece of art or experienced a piece of art that perhaps was not perfect and technically, but it had that rawness or authenticity  That perhaps something that was technically excellent perhaps didn't have, and I think that's, to me, that's what I'm hearing from you. 

One thing you said earlier, there's a couple things I'd like to actually touch on, but one of the things you mentioned was, you know, you went and worked in an office and you found that incredibly difficult. How much has that influenced kind of your artistic practice or has it? It's so funny because this,  I mean, it's, I think it's influenced my business because it really really helps.

Made me become a really brilliant administrator, but I kind of feel it's like working in an office. It was very much a Establishment where I found the same type of hierarchical  structures and I find a very anti human at some points because you know, there's always the bosses at the top and then there's a there's a second in command overseers  And then you've got the rest, like the minions at the bottom.

And I found that there was very few spaces that I worked in where it was person centered. And it was very, I found it to be quite a very soul destroying. Not every single place I worked at, but, um, working in the office. Later on, I worked in a college, which was amazing. It was so brilliant. I became a lecturer.

But when I worked in the office, It was a council office and it gave me a lot. It gave me a lot in terms of being able to write reports, be in a room with different types of people. It really boosted, you know, there's a part of me that likes that, but  it kind of, you know, I think it really helped me in business, in terms of administration.

I liked the community, like, I liked working, we worked with the residents, so that was quite nice, getting to know people, the community, the community aspect of that. But,  I found it to be really hard in how, I mean, it's changed a lot now, thank God, you're the only, Good thing that came out in the pandemic, people could work from home.

But I just saw people's souls just get destroyed little by little. And don't get me wrong, not every single office is like that anymore. But the time where I was, it was, there were good, you know, it was interesting. In some aspects because some people loved it because all they need, all they wanted to do is get their wage to go on holiday to, you know, buy clothes for Christmas.

So it was, they was living in the future a lot. There was very little being in the present. It was always, I'm coming to work because I'm just coming to get work. My wage and for Friday to happen. So it felt very much like life was passing by and I think we're a lot more different now. I think everything's a lot more different, but for me it, it was, it wanted me to always search for something deeper and something kinder and something, I dunno, I just, it just didn't, I felt very oppressive, that kind of office.

As much as I liked it, and it got me the clothes I needed to, and the cars I needed to buy, and the holidays. But I used to wake up every morning saying, what am I doing? This is so destroying. And then much later, I just walked out, you know, I left and I went to work in a college. And I think I was, I was teaching like beauty therapy and a massage and  all those kind of complimentary therapist kind of courses.

And it was so lovely. I was just, Every day I enjoyed getting up and going out to teach. I enjoyed my students. I'd love to see the transformation. It was, it felt more nurturing. It felt more like a place of where people was doing better. It felt like dreams was allowed to thrive. And then I never went into those kinds of spaces again. 

So how did you move from that type of employment, whether it's teaching or office, you know, how did you move from there to, you know, the coaching and, and being an artist? So when I was actually, so I always used to apply for jobs when I was in the office and I would never get any jobs. Never, never. I mean, I would apply for so many.

I wanted to leave the council because we were being bullied by a terrible manager. And so I never wanted to, um, I always wanted to get out and I could never get any admin jobs. And I remember my dad saying, Oh my God, you're really trying. But I think it's a universe. A God saying to me like, no, you know, like my guardian angels like, nope, we've got this line for you.

And then, so, then I decided I wanted to do my nails and I decided I wanted to be a nail technician. I thought I was always a person, because of my mom, always have something on the side, never just do one job. So I decided to be a nail technician just for, you know, like side money, like a side hustle. And, um, But they said to us, when I did the training, I wanted to get insurance, and a woman said, Well, you need a beauty therapy course, so you can get insurance.

An aesthetician,  what you'd probably call it, where you are, but to get a license, I needed to do a whole course. I was like, Oh my God. So I did that, and then, I enjoyed it. It was quite fun. And so someone said, why don't you teach? Someone says, why don't you teach these, um, women suffered domestic violence, how to do makeup.

And when I taught them, it was a basic workshop and the transformation at the end of the class, I was in tears and the women were in tears. And I'd never had that. So I thought this is really beautiful. So I decided to do Saturday morning for 12 weeks. I did a teacher training course. That's me being naturally curious.

I just thought maybe I want to teach and I had seen a woman that was teaching me now. She looked so happy. I said to my sister, I want to be like her. So I did this teacher training course, nobody at work knew, I just did it on a Saturday and started to teach on Saturdays or maybe Fridays. I cut my hours, my days down in the office, but I had a really challenging manager and Everybody was having problems with her.

And so she wanted me to go back full time because I think I looked too happy working four days a week. And so, um, by that time I just said, look, I want to do part time. And it was like, no, you've got to come back. And it felt very, um,  So by that time I was like, I started to teach other places and I just said, I'm not, I just went off sick because I felt like I was being bullied and nobody was trying to work with me.

It was like, you have to come back full time and you know, they don't have, they're not giving me any more money. I'm, you know, they wanted to say, you can have a full time, but you can't work. So I just went, I'm going to go off sick. And then I got to a point after that.  Because I didn't feel the anxiety anymore.

I didn't feel the stress. And I got to a point where I just thought, I would rather not have a job than be in this misery. And I had a mortgage. I've had a mortgage, you know, for ages. And I said, I can't do this. So I went to my teacher who taught me massage and said, do you have a job? Um, I'm willing to teach anything, even like level one.

And she said, Monday, just start on Monday. Just turn up on Monday with your white, your uniform and teach this class. And so the first day I rang them up and I said, I'm not coming back. Just like that. I said, I'm not coming back anymore. And then they said, Oh, we don't know your state of mind. We will make, we can give you three days off now.

You know, they wanted to bargain. But by that time, I just, I don't need this. I'm 28 or 27. You know, I don't need to do this and I left the Friday as an admin assistant on the Monday I started as a lecturer and so I worked there for by that time. I'd done my beauty therapy course I'd done massage by this time and I was working teaching three days a week and the money was really good So when my in my office job, I was getting stuff at like, you know, nine pounds an hour for 15 an hour And as a teacher, it was like 25, you know, so it was such a big difference and, and sometimes it was hard financially, but I did that.

And then I set up a clinic. I started to rent a room in a clinic and see clients. I think I was so grateful just to be serving and not be in that misery that I worked incredibly hard. And then I was really enjoying massaging and just teaching and learning about my spirituality. I'd left the council like 1999.

So I've been teaching all this time, teaching different colleges. And then I got tired. My, I got an injury. So my hand, my wrist. like a repetitive strain injury and I was making really good money as a massage therapist like I was I'd never made that kind of money before and that and teaching together was amazing but I had to give up I had to stop doing massage so I took on more teaching and then there was a government scheme where you could learn coaching and you could learn NLP so I was able to, I just said, I'm going to try that.

That's me, a natural, natural inquisitive person. And I did the coaching course and it was free at the time. And I, cause I needed something else to supplement my business. I still wanted to work with people, but I couldn't work physically. And so I, um, transitioned. And again, I always believe the right work comes to you and it flows.

And I started to have clients. And I was still teaching, but then the college system changed again and it became like loads of paperwork. I mean, now it's more computerized, so it's less paperwork, but it got to a place where there was change in government administration and funding. So it became more paperwork, less teaching.

And so I just thought, I'm just going to do it. I can't do this, I've just had enough. I really want to just work with clients. And during that time, I was getting so burnt out with the teaching, I started to create a journal, an art journal, online with some other women. And I was sharing it on Facebook. And then people were saying, can we just buy prints?

And I was like, mm, what does that mean? You know, how do, how do I do this? So my cousin, who's a creative director, I said to him, what do I do? They want to buy prints. I don't want to sell the originals. At the time I was precious. And he said, well, this is what you do. And then I just rang around companies and said, how much do you charge for a geekly print?

And then when I  So I just started to sell and someone said, can you have a calendar? So I would respond to people. And so I created a calendar and then they said, can you have an exhibition? So I had an exhibition and I sold. My first exhibition was a local hybrid cat. I think I made 2000.  Pounds and I think the biggest picture went for a thousand and I was selling prints and I think I sold two originals.

I think I said 1, 400 pounds worth of originals and that was a lot. That was  2016. I didn't know what I was doing, but I had someone curate it for me and, um, and I sold so many prints, cards. And then I decided to get a studio after that. And then I was just teaching independently to supplement myself. And then that's when I transitioned, but I started to do work.

So the local authority contacted me and said, Can you do, you know, we've got commissions for artists. We're giving 1, 000 to do an art workshop or something with the community. So I'd already, by this time, My dad had passed, so I wasn't seeing as much clients, but I wanted, because I was getting asked to do all these art things in the community, I did a community arts course, and it was also just to help me cope with the grief.

And so,  I, um, did that, got a distinction, and then did an advanced practice course. My tutor said to me, you need to do this other course. I'm a perpetual learner, and then we had a group exhibition, and I sold originals again. And I just thought, okay, so I don't want to be running around selling calendars and loads of prints.

I like the conversations that's happening. When people come and look at work, because people are coming to look at work, and people are talking about all sorts of things, and I just thought, I really like public art. Even though I want my art to be in people's homes, I really feel it brings people together when everybody comes out to look at this art and people that don't access art.

So, I feel like, My journey has been what I think life happens through me and to me. And I think when I try to plan, it never works out as, as good as when this journey that I've been on is almost like the creator and universe has said, okay, here you go. Here's a gift. So this is what you must do with it.

And then when it's time for that to transform, I naturally go. So it's been like the element of water just flowing into things.  So just listening to you, it sounds like you've, you know, as you say, these opportunities have flown into your life, but that's, to me, that's sounds like part of it. You've also grabbed at them.

So they, they became available and you thought, yep, I'll have, you know, I'll try this, I'll try that. And so it's, to me, it's a bit of both. It's a bit of opportunities come and you grab the opportunity, really. Yeah. So it sounds like, you know, you've had quite the journey and very interesting journey. And, you know, one thing you did say earlier, and it kind of has come up a little bit too, you've had, you know, you've mentioned that you've met a lot of people in your life, and it sounds, you know, it's certainly describing your journey coming into the world of arts and coaching.

So although the artwork is very personal to you, I think, just kind of going back to something you said earlier, it seems to be like your own personal art, your own personal journey, but also kind of weaving in, you know, spirituality. Yeah. Weaving in, you know, I guess culture as well, because, you know, we all come from different cultures, but also weaving in stories.

And I'm just wondering, as you said too, you know, people come and talk to you about, you know, come to your shows or come to group shows that you're in and talk to you. I mean, I'm kind of hearing also the, you know, as you've kind of indicated, you know, the kind of influences of people you've met along the way, along your journey, along life.

Yeah. How important is that for you, you know, in terms of having not only your personal journey, but also having that contact with other people, interacting with your art? It's, I think it's so important. I do like alone time. I thought I was an extrovert all my life, but I feel now that my body is regulated. 

I realized that I'm, you know, I like to be in outside with people or be with people. And then once I hit a level, I need to recuperate and just retreat. But I think it's really important. I love culture. I love I love different cultures. I love intergenerational aspects of culture. And I think it's really important to be around people and their stories.

I mean, my teaching career, I've been with women that have been taking drugs, substance abuse. Um, I've been teaching people, but I've, you know, never left their local space. Asian women, African, white. All kinds of people from South America, and there's always a similarity about these people. And I think it's really important that I am involved in communities and people, not all the time, not in my personal life.

But  I think that when it comes to my practice, I didn't think that before. I was really focusing on, you know, I need to get into a gallery, I need to get into a gallery. That's it. I think it's really important somebody like myself is in a gallery because of the people that's coming behind me and we need to be in gallery spaces, but I really love the fact, especially when you go to places like New Mexico, Toronto, and you know where you've got spaces where the community spaces and a lot of the artists work with communities and as well as have their own practice and I think that is so important.

So, for me, it's really important that I'm involved in people but I don't want to be extractive in, in my practice. I really want to be able to transform different indigenous stories, or different stories, into my practice, but in a, in a kind way. So when I say I don't want to be extractive, two weeks ago I did um, two workshops to deal with black women and trauma and looking at why they don't.

Get mental health, get help, like counselling, they're very low on numbers. And part of this workshop was for local government, but it was also part of my kind of getting statistics and putting that into my art practice. And it wasn't until I didn't do any yoga, we didn't do any, normally I would do a bit of meditation, but there was no movement.

It was just a bit of artwork and just a space of rest. And I kind of realized. Um, a couple of people wanted to come in and get information from these women and I, I just thought to myself, it's not enough just to have coffee mornings and to extract research from people or get oral histories from people.

I think it's really important that spaces and places, third places are created for marginalized people to, or any kinds of people actually, to get information because sometimes our memories carry quite traumatic events. And I feel that we need to, when we're documenting and detailing, we don't want to be like, is it, um, what's his name?

Dumeric Gauguin, I think I've pronounced it wrong, but you know, we don't want to go to a place and just use an other as our subjects. to the exploitation of those subjects, so I don't want to reference people in my work and exploit them without either giving something back or acknowledging them in the work.

Does that make sense? I'm going off on a tangent there. No, it does make sense. To me it sounds like it's giving people, and, and some, you know, it sounds like you're working, you know, sometimes with marginalized people who face challenges and don't have access to the support they need. Giving them a safe space to kind of, and the thing about art is, it's a way to kind of express, it's a way to, you know, it's a different space, it's a way to kind of express things.

But also, it's allowing them to be, and it's, I think it's very powerful. To allow people to be and be in that space, in a safe space, not to exploit them, but also to feel like they're being seen, to being heard, you know, just be as human beings, and to be accepted and appreciated as people, and that's a very basic human need.

That's what I'm hearing. Yeah, it's really important. I think it's really important what you say, to be seen. And to be heard, you know, to be, and I think that my, I did a project, a skate documentary for Newham Heritage, so it was a heritage project. And I'm a roller skater  and I've been since the 80s and I, you know, grew up as a skater, my family skated.

And the opportunity to make a piece of heritage work around the area I grew up in, a shopping centre, which used to be a roller skate place at night, in the evening, and I'd already made connections with certain people already that would film. So I was able to create this documentary and it's about the London skaters from East London.

And it's been phenomenal. But what I think, what you've said is really key, is everybody said, Oh, you've done this film. It's really good. But it's actually like my love letter to Newham that held such an important part of my growing up, firstly, but also It's seeing that part of my history, so it is personal to me, that part of my history and those, the people that came after me, allowing those people that, that kind of carried the torch that my generation had, to be recognised pre pandemic, because I think it's really important to recognise that.

The people that have been part of the trail, you know, because if we don't, how can we, if it's not been written down, it's not in a book and also it has been documented, but it's not been documented really by people that lived it, the lived experience. And I think it's really important for me with that documentary to show that it was about a lived experience as opposed to, you know, a corporation giving lots of money to something and glossing it over rather than actually this.

The impact of these activities has been really huge. So, that part of my work, I think what you've just said is really key, is allowing people to be seen as much as I want to be seen and understood for the work that I'm trying to, to do. So, we've come to my last question, is what's next? You know, what's on the horizon for you in terms of, you know, projects and things with your artwork?

So, like I said, as I'm speaking to you now, I mean, um, I'm in a building where I'm doing a residency which ends this week. It's just been a two week residency and it's, I keep getting pulled back to my place of birth. So I've done an audio piece and some artwork around this actual thing. But I feel for me, I want to have an exhibition because I've got some really large pieces that I need to exhibit.

But, within that, I'm thinking of working with more sound, more my person, so more images of me, whether it's photography, or me trying to paint myself, I don't know, but I think I need to use myself as a subject, and use myself as a subject where it's kind of a bit disruptive. I really keep saying that in interviews, that I really want to be a bit disruptive, not in a way.

I'm just doing it for it to be disruptive sake, but I'm working a lot around trauma. I'm doing a lot of research around trauma, intergenerational trauma, but also How we hold trauma in our bodies and shame and not speaking up so a lot around the things that we don't do as women. I speak as a female, identified female, so that's what I want to do is more paintings and mixed media.

So maybe Film, but not professional film, but you know, like a film combined with my paintings, I don't know, mixing up the mediums, audio and visual. But I think I just need to experiment with myself and rather than look at the other to bring the work, you know, work with the question, you know, work with the insight that you said about what is deeply personal.

I feel like I'm in a place of rebirth where I've done a lot of work around community. I've done a lot of work around this space. It's in East London, but I feel like I need to tell some other stories. And I don't know what that is yet, but I'm just really open to the process. Yeah, I'm sure the stories will come to you. 

Knowing me, it'll be something that'll be, I'll be catapulted out of this country, probably, you know, like, with my knife.  You'll be catapulted somewhere anyway, whether it's this country or elsewhere.  Well, great. It's been really interesting and wonderful speaking with you. So I'd like to thank you for being a guest on this podcast.

Thank you so much. It's been amazing. Just really speaking and, you know, every time I, every time I speak about my work, I have more of a realization of myself and my practice through the questions I'm asked. So thank you so much. I really appreciate this. Well, no worries. Thank you. And I have to say, speaking to people, I have a very similar experience.

It really opens my eyes and, you know, really does influence me as well. So thank you. so much, Heather. I really appreciate you listening to this episode with Marilyn. I hope you enjoyed it. For more information about Marilyn, including her social media handles, check out the episode notes. I'd really appreciate it if you could also rate and review the podcast in the podcast tabs.

In the next episode, I have a really interesting conversation with Sinead Smythe, who is an artist and curator in Donegal in Ireland. I look forward to you joining me in the next episode.