E5, S6 Amanda Cotton | 3D designer and artist

In this episode, we meet Amanda Cotton - a contemporary sculptor and 3D designer based at Trinity Buoy Wharf, East London. Working across ceramics, composites, and mould-making, Amanda’s practice explores identity, body image, and emotional resonance through unconventional materials and meticulous technique.

She’s the creator of Inexorable, the UK’s first non-binary sculpture, commissioned by Audible UK and now touring as an educational piece. Her portfolio includes Body of Work, a reflection on the human life cycle, and the intimate We 100 Project, which inspired her journey into wellness practice.

At Art Craft Studios, Amanda teaches ceramics and hosts Ceramic Socials, opening up creative spaces for all. Tune in to discover how she fuses technical mastery with emotional depth - and how her studio fosters both artistry and community.

Episode recorded on 28 August 2025

Explore more: amandacotton.co.uk

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Website: www.artiststales.net
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Transcript

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 we're meeting an artist based at Trinity Boy Wharf in East London. A place where the Thames meets imagination. My guest is Amanda Cotton, a rising force in contemporary sculpture and 3D design.

Amanda's work is bold, thought provoking, and deeply personal from crafting the UK's first non-binary sculpture to exploring body image and identity through ceramics. She's not afraid to challenge the norms that shape her everyday lives with a background in materials practice and a passion for emotional storytelling through form.

Lin's Technical mastery with social commentary. Her pieces. Don't just sit in space, they speak to it. Welcome, Amanda. It's uh, really great to have you as a guest. Thank you, Heather. It's lovely to be here and thank you for that wonderful introduction. Sounds great. Well, you're a wonderful guest and a really interesting artist.

So I know I've introduced you in the introduction, but would you like to tell us a bit more about yourself? So, I'm a designer and kind of 3D artist. I was born in Essex, um, studied in Brighton, and I live in London, as you rightly said, at Trinity Boy Wharf where I've been renting a studio here now for almost eight years, and I've been living here as a full-time artist as well for the past two and a half years.

So what drew you to get into sculpture and 3D design? Um, well, I've always been creative ever since I was tiny, always. So many like craft books when I was younger that I'd always create something or other. I did a master's at Brighton. I always, I knew I wanted to do sculpture, but I also wanted to kind of learn particular materials.

So I did 3D materials at the Brighton University, so I studied wood, metal, plastics, and ceramics. So, although my sculpture I knew was quite contemporary and quite niche in the materials I wanted to use and the topics, I wanted to know that I would be able to manipulate those materials to be exactly what I wanted it to be and kind of not disturb the viewer's eye on poor making.

So I wanted to learn the craft skills that were needed to be able to do that. And so that's kind of what started all really, I think, in terms of that. But in terms of kind of me as an artist. I, I love looking at kind of the preconceptions of people's lives and how we go about our everyday lives and ignore the tiny little things that we almost take for granted.

And by putting them kind of in a spotlight, in a athe, aesthetically pleasing manner, kind of seeing what the viewer feels about them and how the audience will react. You mentioned kind of preconceived ideas, so what are, what preconceived ideas you're trying to challenge. All sorts. Um, when I started out, it was all about the kind of parts of the body that we love.

For instance, your hair, everyone loves the hair on your head. We all pay thousands of pounds having our hair cut, dyed, blow, dried, whatever we want. Yeah. If you see hair in the plug hole or off your head, it's kind of seemed as disturbing. And to me, I find that interesting. Like, why is the hair off your head disturbing yet on your head?

It's beautiful. So it's challenging that idea and seeing where people go with it. And also I think too, there's some people have boldness, which we often associate to men, but women can have it as well. And I'm wondering if that's also maybe an aspect of, of challenging the norms or challenging preconceived ideas.

Yeah, definitely. That's a lot of that as well. Yeah. One of the things that I always found interesting, this is probably a little bit too much detail for some of the viewers, but I also collected my own urine every day for a year. So my first sample of every day, and then I displayed it as like a calendar.

It's 15 meters long and I put the date next to every single one. And the idea, when I put it up, I had to be challenged in the terms of kind of health and safety of it, but actually it was no different to somebody touching it as if they went to a public toilet and opened the door. So small kind of aspects like that, like you're saying in terms of boldness and things, it's everyday things that.

We all take for granted or don't think about alopecia and things like that. Someone might have a full head of hair, but they still might have alopecia. That's very interesting. In terms of the urine actually, it's, um, because I think, you know, there's certainly, I think people have, you know, is it a taboo about urine?

You just go to Lou or go to the bathroom and, and just urinate. How did people react to that particular installation? Surprisingly, no one knew it was urine, so I didn't have to tell people that it was because if one of the vials accidentally came undone, it was the same as if a child had wet themself or you were changing a nap.

And as I said, it was the same as if someone didn't wash their hands when they went to the bathroom. So there was a sign that, you know, in the my little brief description that explained it, but I didn't have to do any of those things. And also for me, it was about the health because urine is an incredible thing that when we're sick.

Nearly always, we'll find it in our urine, what we've eaten, what we're allergic to. All of those things come from our urine. When you find out if you are pregnant or not, you do a urine test. It tells us so many things, yet we just simply flush it away. So the reaction to it people, because I'd put the date next to it, people were looking for like their birthdays and trying to find what my urine looked like on their birthday.

So it was interesting. I also had a diary of everything I drank from the same year, so you could see kind of my healthy days, my not so healthy days and things like that. I had lots of swabs taken and tested to see what my levels were like. Turns out at the time I was a very healthy person, although a student.

So, um, but it wasn't just like an art piece, it was all about the journey of it, like. Every day for 365 days, I remembered to take a sample without forgetting and kind of the idea of that around the, how people perceived it, yes, they were just samples of urine, but why I went through to collect them all and what they actually represented in terms of our lives was completely different.

That's quite an interesting project. Now, in the introduction, I also mentioned that you had the UK's first non-binary sculpture. Would you like to tell us a bit more about that project? So that was a commission. It was based around Ann Bonnie and Mary Reed, who were, um, real life 17th century pirates buried in history and we're always told when we are younger.

Well, I was. You know, female pirates didn't exist, but that is not the case. They very much did. There was quite a few of them, but Ann, Bonnie and Mary Reed, they'd written an audio book based around them, and I had to build a sculpture around the audio book that they'd written. So they dressed as men so that they could get onto pirate ships.

And then as their lives went on, Anne decided to become female, whereas Mary continued to dress as a man and represent herself as a man. I never labeled it the first non-binary sculpture. It was a newspaper that did do that. Um, but technically if they were around nowadays, then they would've been non-binary.

So yeah, I was commissioned to make it. We did it and then they very kindly gifted me the sculpture. So I am now the owner of a seven foot, one ton sculpture of two female pirates. Um, so yeah, it went through a little bit of controversy because it was meant to go. The original people that commissioned me, it was meant to go to Bear Island in Devon, but the locals rejected the planning permission, so it ended up with me.

And it's currently in Lewis in Sussex at a football ground, Lewis fc. Which pay and play their female footballers equally. Apparently they're the only comp, um, football team in the world that do so. So it's standing nice and tall looking at the pitch as a reminder that women can be footballers and women can be pirates.

I never knew there were women pirates, but part of me is also not that surprised because I think a lot of those histories or hert stories are not written about or, or appreciated. They don't feature in Pirates of the Caribbean either. Yeah. I mean, part of me is also not surprised, but also surprised. But yeah.

Anyway, couple of questions around that. Firstly is why did the locals object. Good question. Some of them didn't like the fact that they were lesbian lovers. Others didn't want to glamorize criminals. And I think one of the quotes was that they would rather a fisherman's wife, a sculpture of a fisherman's wife, which to me was quite an interesting quote because they labeled these women as fishermen's wives rather than.

By their names or you know, a woman in her own right. Why did it have to be a fisherman's wife? So it was quite an interesting quote, which worked in my favor because it got global recognition, which was great. I don't think they realized how big globally it was gonna go. And I think sometimes having a controversy makes it more famous.

Yeah. In, in some ways. But I just find it really ironic, you know, that, well, I guess in a way it's, uh, you know, it's in line with what. Your work is about in terms of challenging people's perceptions, isn't it? Yes, definitely. Uh, yes, they were pirates, but the statue itself, it's not, they don't look like pirates.

They look like two females that stood there together. Anne was incredibly impulsive and fiery and she loved kind of jewels and luxurious items, but I tried to represent her as fire, so her figure is meant to look like a kind of match flame. She's got a big cutout in her stomach that is fiery flames, and her hair is all wavy like fire and are coming out.

Then Mary, she was a lot more calculated and thought thoughtful, kind of very grounded, probably the most scariest one. But she was kind of quite broad shoulders and I tried to build her a little bit more like a mounting with her shoulders in kind of comparison to Anne. And I kind of felt, she reminded me a lot like Miss Trun Bull from Matilda.

So she had like a bun on her head in that sense, rather than flowing like Anne. And, um, in the story, it said that she was lashed a hundred times on her back because she'd bound her breasts so that they couldn't find out she was female. She got lashed a hundred times and couldn't see a medic. Otherwise she would've been found out.

So she had to bear the pain and she had huge scars across her back. So I did like some big cutouts that looked like a kind of rugged mountain effect on her back. To represent the fact that she was kind of earth and then Anne was fire. And the idea was that they've got these cutouts in their kind of body sections that the water would run through them, like it did their veins because they loved being at the sea.

So had kind of elements of nature in there. So they didn't really look like pirates. They kind of stood very, yes, it's seven foot. But it was only made seven foot 'cause it was meant to go in the water. So we measured the tide to see how tall it needed to be. That's why it was seven foot. But they kind of stand, they, they're just kind of tilted towards each other, connected by their shoulders.

So it's a very subtle sculpture. But yeah, they didn't, they didn't want it. Well, it's, it's interesting because a pirate's life, I would imagine isn't easy anyway. No. But it's even made harder if you're a woman. Mm-hmm. Born a woman, you know, I don't know how they identified at that time, but probably didn't have the same language as we do now, but that kind of double whammy of, yeah, life is not easy anyway as a pirate, but particularly if you're not the stereotypical male.

Yes. Yeah. But they did commandeer their own ships apparently, and were official pirates on their own chips, which is great. I wish I'd known about it when I was younger. Could have run about as a pirate. Same here. Same here. My other question I wanted to ask about them was how did they end up in Lewis? So why did the Lewis Football Club take them?

Because it got a lot of press. A lot of press. Lots of people were reaching out to me via kind of different social media paces. And it was Karen from Louis FC that got in touch and she's an incredible woman. And um, she just kind of explained the club to me and I was like, yeah, why can't a piece of art go to Lewis FC Football Club?

I think everyone assumes art should be in a gallery in a white space here and there. Then the other. And I thought there'll be so many young girls that are going to these football matches and young boys that will see that sculpture and hopefully it will help them kind of realize that they can be whoever they wanna be and you know, live in that kind of spirit.

So I was more than happy for it to go there. It's been there, I think three years now. Oh wow. Yeah. And do you know, or do you have a sense of how fans react to it or engage with, with the statues? They love it. Might see. Um, it's really great. Like when I go down and watch a game, they're kind of, it's on a plinth as well.

They're small plinth. 'cause we had to alter it slightly so that it could move around after it couldn't go in the water. So it sits on its own plinth, but they kind of sit there eating their chips, watching the game. Like it's just, it's just kind of like a part of everything. So the idea being that Anna Mary in the story never really had a real home, and then obviously Burr Island rejected the sculpture and that didn't have a home.

So now it's quite nice that they're at Lewis C and everyone is connected with it, sits on the sculpture, stands with it as their photo taken with it. It really feels like they've now found a place. And how do you feel about that? I mean, you kind of sound quite chuffed actually at, you know, the, the two women have found a home.

Yeah, I feel, I mean, there was a lot of ups and downs with the sculpture. Planning permission was a huge challenge. It's seven foot and it weighs just over a tongue, so it was a big challenge. And when I was told that they were gonna gift it to me, I was just like, yeah, sure. Hadn't really thought about all the challenges that were gonna come with it.

But I kind of knew I wanted it to go somewhere that people were gonna really look up to it and feel proud of it, to be part of their community. And I feel that with Lewis fc. So they're happy though, and they stand and watch the game isn't nice. Probably enjoying the game as well. Yeah, definitely. So I like it.

They feel, I feel like the sculpture is loved where it's so. Yeah. I'm also interested in some of your other projects. So I also understand you have a long-term portfolio about the human cycle as well as the we 100 projects. So would you like to tell me about those two projects that you have? Um, so the We 100 project started during lockdown.

Um, I decided to sculpt myself out of clay 'cause I had nothing else to do so. I measured every 10 centimeters of my body and I sculpted myself out of clay. I thought it would take about two, three weeks. It took me nearly four months because we were in lockdown. I couldn't really have people coming to help me, so I was having to make it in like stages.

Um, and I'm not very big. I'm only five foot, but still it was a struggle to pick it up. It was a lot of clay. It weighed, the clay sculpture weighed just over a hundred kilos, so it was a lot. I didn't wanna do it by looking in mirrors. I wanted to do it by measuring my body. Um, and I didn't realize how much I kind of disliked my own body.

I kind of had an image of what it looked like and I was sculpting it, but then measuring it was very different. And people, eventually, when we started coming out of lockdown, some friends would come and help me move it. And because it was technically naked me. Um, I'd like put a blanket on it so they couldn't see it and kind of hide it away.

So there was quite a lot of challenges in terms of actually doing that, and I wasn't making it to be an art project. I was just doing it for fun. Really. I'd never actually sculpted something that was five foot and I wanted it to stand, so I had to build an internal armature as well. And after I'd done it, I put some pictures online, which for me was also a challenge because I found I'm not really somebody that takes pictures of myself and kind of puts them out there.

So putting a sculpture like that out there was kind of like. People's feedback would either be they were criticizing or being positive about my body, or were they criticizing and being positive about my sculptural skills. So some people would be like, oh, like, you know, your arms aren't quite that small or this, or, you know, your tummy's tinier than that.

And I was like, well, that's nice, but now you're just putting my sculpting skills down. So it was quite hard to navigate, um, how I felt about it. And then I needed to move studio. So, so I was squatting in this one 'cause it was COVID 'cause I couldn't afford my own one. And so I decided very, very quickly to make a mold of my five foot self.

And then I had a mold of it and then I felt bad on the environment that I'd made a silicon fiberglass mold. So I thought if I cast it a hundred times and made a hundred sculptures, then I would've put it to good use. So that was the start of the we 100. Originally it was kind of me, but I realized that it wasn't just about me, it was about others and the viewers and how they felt about my sculpture, like my parents, how they felt about looking at it being naked, me, kind of how I felt about people looking at naked me.

So that's why we switched it from, well, I say we, how I switched it from being about me to the we we 100 kind of project. So each one is labeled kind of like we recycle or we feed or we grow. So far there's nine of them. And you touched on kind of your, you know, your body image, how you view your body image and, and your self-esteem.

I mean, I think that can be quite difficult because I think perhaps some artists or many artists, when they're dressing self-esteem or body image or both, it's, it's about somebody else. It's about getting people to think about it. But it sounded like it was also equally challenging for you as the artist, and it's you.

Yeah. It's your body and yeah. So how did that feel? Because it sounded like a bit of a struggle. It was. I'd gone through quite a bit of health issues a few years before that. I think I hadn't really kind of realized what I'd actually been through until I started building the sculpture and how I saw myself and how I felt about my body until I was sculpting it.

So it was very emotional, like actually doing it and building it. As well as exhausting. 'cause it kept breaking. But it was also, at one point I was, I had the whole thing standing and my head fell off and fell on the floor and I was like, I'll just leave that there right now. That's exactly how I feel. So that can just stay there.

So it was an enjoyable experience. But yeah, and I mean, I still look at them now and I can't quite actually look at them. I don't usually tell people that they are. Officially me, unless I guess, but each one has its own personality and its own kind of vibe, depending on the materials and things that I've used.

So I don't really see them as me anymore. I mean, that's a version of me. I'm not the same shape or size or anything anymore. So it's a. Almost like a pinpoint of my life, but I don't see it as me anymore. And I guess in a way that's perhaps part of the dialogue, you know, both in terms of your own health issues at the time, but also we do change.

You know, our body changes over time and we often think, oh, well, as you know, we talk about I change or we change over time. Often it's about. You grow or it's your personality. Yeah. But we don't always think perhaps it's a shyness or taboo topic about how our bodies change over time. Mm, definitely. Yeah.

Um, I'm doing one that's technically three years in the making now, and it's called We Grow. So I took the mold and I built, well actually I sewed, I should say, a Hessian sack and filled it with soil and it stands upright. And I planted two pieces of ivy that I cut out of my parents' garden. Three years later, the Ivy is just about on the head and covering the face.

So it's really been quite lovely to watch it grow all over this sculpture and kind of the sculpture looked a bit sad for itself, but suddenly it's filled with life and all excitable and covered in bright green Ivy. And it's quite nice to see it. 'cause kind of at the beginning of the project, that's how I felt a bit dull a bit.

Oh. And now I'm looking at this thinking, oh, I love this project. This is great. So the um, the We grow one is probably definitely in line with my thought process as well. And, and how about the. Your long term portfolio about the human cycle. So is that just a long-term project or, yeah, it is. I think that goes back to me collecting parts of my body and kind of going through that.

So obviously I did the, I did a hair project. I had really, really long hair and when I was doing my hair project, I cut it all off and I made a sculptural piece. So I made cups, bowls, plates, all out of ceramics. I weighed each one so I could make enough so that it would be equal to my weight at the time.

So it was kind of meant to be a bit of a self project. Um. Self-portrait, but sculptural. And then on each piece, I used my hair. I had it spun into yarn and I knitted with it and put it onto the cups and the bowls in a very kind of aesthetically pleasing manner. But the idea being, when people looked at it, would they eat from it?

Would they not eat from it? Like my hair looked beautiful, but how did they feel him in that sense? So that was one project, and when I was doing my master's, I had to take it all a step further. So my tutors at the time asked me, you know, what the plan was, what was gonna be the ultimate part of the body that I was gonna take to the next step.

Are you ready for this? Ready as I can ever be. Um, I was actually living with a midwife at the time, so the placenta came up. How women grow a placenta. It keeps our baby alive the whole time and it tells us all about our baby. Um, we grow it as females, we grow the placenta and then we reject it. And it's most of the time kind of just thrown away.

Some cultures, they eat it, they bury it, all sorts of different things. But I decided that I would kind of transform it into a photo frame. So it was never meant to be a sellable piece. It was just meant to kind of be an artifact, you know, a conversation about, you know, why do we throw this organ away that is part of us?

And the idea being that you would have this placenta photo frame and you would put the baby back in the frame, you know, as you could be your scan, or it could be the baby's first picture. You put them both together and it did look lovely. If you didn't know it was beta, it looked beautiful. Kind of like a granite worktop kind of vibe, but.

It was made of placenta. The thing that strikes me initially with this frame made it the out of the placenta, but also a number of your other projects like your, the one with your hair and that sort of thing, and, and the one with the urine. Well, the placenta, the first thing that popped into my mind was.

The idea or the feeling that the women's body can be taboo, you know, apart from being, having children, you know, that kind of sexual having children, but even the whole process of birthing can be quite a taboo. But I think some of the other projects. I could, you know, arguably I can say the same thing or others can say the same thing.

It kind of challenges the taboo. So I'm just wondering if that's something you were conscious of or whether it just kind of, it's something I'm reading into. It wasn't, initially it all seemed quite normal when you considered I'd collected my urine. Um, but it is a good question. So when I was actually at Brighton and I decided I was doing this project as my master's, the my tutors, 'cause they were my third year tutors, my fourth year.

The current tutor at the time, he hadn't seen my work, didn't realize what was going on, hadn't seen any of my research, and, um, was completely mortified that I'd decided this is what I was doing. And actually he tried to get me thrown out. Um, I had to go to the head of the university to chat with them. I had to sit in front of.

Kind of like a panel and explain myself and why I was doing it. My previous tutors had to write letters for me to explain my project and why I was doing it, and that it made perfect sense in what I'd been doing, and I did it all. I wasn't allowed into university for nearly three months. I had to work from home, and then eventually they let me back in.

There was a huge, huge debate as to whether I could use a female human placenta or whether it had to be an animal. They said I had to use an animal's placenta, but no butcher would give me one, but one of my, she wasn't a tutor, she was a technician. She was actually pregnant at the time, and I'd written a consent form and she had signed it, and she gave me full consent to use hers, but the university still wouldn't let me do it.

So I had to use pigs livers at the time at when I was at university. So we got round it. But it was interesting because I had to do a whole ethics part to the project, and I had to sit in front of a panel and explain myself and go through all of that, that I hadn't just come up with this. It had been three years in the making until this point, and I had all the research and everything behind it, and eventually I was allowed back in and I did it.

And then on the day of my graduation, the gentleman came up to me and shook my hand and he said I was wrong. Your research was incredible and I'd like to buy your research book as a reminder not to be so narrow minded. So it was great and it all worked out. That does sound positive, but it, I suspect, or I, I don't find it any easier that he put you through that.

No, but he prepared me for the real world because this piece also did get a little bit of publicity around it because it, you know, at the time it was quite taboo, taboo. And he prepared me for what was to come, because anybody that questions my work or says, you know, this, that, or the other, I have a backup.

I can say, you know, for me it's all about the journey. It's all about the processes. My research, I can spend years doing research on one piece. The final outcome doesn't usually mean that much to me. It's all about the beginning bit, the research and building and the journey. So he taught me kind of hand to handle that and be ready for it, and I probably wouldn't be where I am now.

Just like with the pirates to statue being rejected from Devon, he, you know, as much as I was upset with him at the time, there was a lot of tears. I wouldn't have been ready for that. I would've been mortified at the rejection, whereas I knew why I'd built that sculpture. I knew what it looked like. I knew every reason why it was that shape, color, pattern, everything.

I had an answer for everything. So. At the same time. I thank him a lot for it. It does make me wonder, was he around in the nineties with Tracy Emman and Damien Hurst? I mean, honestly, they were doing quote unquote shocking stuff in the nineties. I mean, it even made it to Canada. Where I'm from. Like I think he probably just saw me.

I was a student and just thought, why is this girl doing this? And he hadn't. It just proved that my third year show, he hadn't gone to look at my work. He knew I was gonna be a student and he hadn't gone to look at what I'd done. If it'd seen my wee ribbon, he probably, and all my samples, he might have actually understood it a bit more.

Um, but I mean, it was interesting. Like I said, I learned loads about the amount of urine, you know, health and safety of touching it, not touching it, being. So when I used the urine in university, I had to put a sign up to say I was doing it so people knew. Things like that was so many interesting things that I learned, so I'm kind of glad, really.

I learned how to write consent forms, all sorts of things, contracts, so it was definitely a help in the end. Dramatic but worth it in the end. It's good that you're talking about the positive, but also recognizing it wasn't easy at the time. Now my final question is what's next because it sounds like you've achieved an awful lot already.

And you're still relatively young and I'm just thinking what's next? What, where do you see yourself or your career going? Well, a few years ago I was very lucky and I sold a sculpture, so I opened up a studio, it's called Art Craft Studios, so I decided to put my skills to kind of use as well, to help others.

So I opened a community space that welcomes creativity to anybody, no matter your kind of creative experience. The idea being we do workshops, memberships predominantly in pottery, but other arts and crafts too, like crochet and sewing and stuff. The idea kind of like people, you know, creativity, there is no right or wrong kind of.

To me, that's the beauty of it. And so by people coming to my space. A little bit like what would happen to me. University people can come learn, find their way of what they want to do and how they want to do it without being questioned if it's right or wrong. I mean, some skill, yes, there's a level, some creative skills, can't even speak.

Some arts and crafts. There are a level of skill, but also, you know, you might not have that skill. Right? And it could be a happy mistake and it could be the best thing that's ever been done. Like some crochet looks great with a few holes in it. Mm-hmm. You know, embrace those imperfections and stuff like that.

I think so for me, that's been my kind of role over the last couple of years has been building that, um, and sharing all my knowledge in all the different materials that I have under my belt, but also building the We 100 project. I mean, I've decided to do a hundred and I'm only nine in, and I started in 2020, so I've got a lot more to go.

The two big ones that I did was one was made of bird seed and then I put it in um, a cemetery park and we watched the wildlife eat it for three weeks and that took me nearly nine months to make that one. So I feel like I need to get quicker at making them and planning on doing a candle wax one so we can watch it melt and kind of see how I feel about seeing myself burn and melt away.

And we're doing a matchstick one as well to watch that burn. See how that feels. I'd love to do an ice cube so I can see it melt and how the viewers and I feel about that. So yeah, I need to do some also, these are all quite morbid ones. I need to think of some more positive ones, like the We Grow I for like maybe a musical instrument.

One might be quite nice. Kind of touch on the senses of the body. I've done one to do with touch and I've done one to do with taste. So I did one that was made out of cake. I got loads of local people to come and, um, make cakes for me. And then we built it into the sculpture. So it was five foot cake covered in icing and then I got a local community to all come and we had a big tea party and they all ate it.

So, um, that was a taste one. So it'll be quite nice to do like a hit all five senses. So I think that's kind of next on my list really. So it sounds like you're gonna be probably busy for the next, well, a little while or foreseeable future anyway. Yeah. Um, but I'm also on the lookout for kind of Anna Mary.

Obviously they've got a home now, they're happy where they're, Hmm. I'm on the lookout of finding kind of more women that were buried in history that potentially I can find, dig out and show off. I can probably tell you anyway. I'm very interested at the moment I live in Trinity Boy Wharf, which is not far from.

Kind of Agate East area where Jack the Ripper was around, and in my mind, kind of Jack the Ripper is a huge name. There's a chip shop that's called Jack the Chipper. There's a museum all about it. There's a walk all about it. But does anybody actually know the female's names that he killed? Why is he a celebrity and well known?

The females aren't. And so I'm looking at that kind of route at the moment of, maybe it's because it's in my local hometown as well. I feel quite passionate about that one, that it would be lovely to see a sculpture of them that represents those five women. Um, and a little bit like kind of Anna Mary being pirates.

Everybody considered them as prostitutes. But does that make them, you know, wrong in the sense they might not have been. It's just we were told that they were, they might not have been. So I'm doing my research at the moment to kind of go down that route and see what comes out of it. Yeah. And on that point about women being quote unquote prostitutes.

I think regardless of whether they are or not, it's often women who are stigmatized as prostitutes, not men, but also so many women who are seen as difficult or non, not conforming to society's expectations are often branded as prostitutes. Exactly. Especially at that time. Yes. So, um, I've been reading lots of books, listening to lots of podcasts, trying to navigate my way around it and see how I feel about it and what I think is my.

Kind of side of the story and hopefully I can kind of build some kind of sculpture that can show them off in a way that people will remember their names. At least we should know their names Indeed. And rather than celebrate Cha River, I was just about to say. Great. Well thank you. You've been a really interesting guest and, and your work is really compelling.

I really appreciate you being a guest on this podcast. Oh, thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for tuning into my conversation with Amanda, a hope her gold approach to 3D Design and her reflections on identity, body image, and public art. Left you inspired to see creativity as a tool for transformation.

If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to check out Amanda's website and social media handle links are in the show notes. And if you're enjoying artist tales. Help us keep the momentum going by sharing this episode with your friends and fellow creatives. In the next episode, I'll be speaking with Michael Angus and Guan from the Barons Court Project in Hammersmith, west London.

This remarkable charity runs an art initiative that empowers people, experie, homelessness and mental ill health to express themselves through creativity from painting to exhibitions and community events. There were proves that art can be a lifeline and a way to reclaim dignity and hope.