Denise 3. Painting by Hilary Mullany

Biography.

Even though for many years I never picked up a brush I always thought of myself as a painter. As a young mum I spent my time looking after my three children, doing the odd drawing or painting and selling a bit, but real life took over and art was just in my head.

Encouraged by my mother, as a thirteen year old, thinking I could draw, I enthusiastically took myself off to Saturday morning classes at my local art school. I soon found out the unvarnished truth. Three hours of figure drawing put me firmly in my place, at the bottom of the heap. Three years and hundreds of suspect figure drawings later, aged sixteen, I became a full time art student.

At Rochdale School of Art, full time students were expected to attend Monday to Friday from 9am ‘till 4.30pm and three evenings each week finishing at 9pm. Whole days of life drawing, figure composition, sculpture, making half life sized models in clay and then casting in plaster of Paris. We learned a craft, for me , fabric printing. Screen printing from our own designs, learning about dyes and precision. I still have my first effort done by my sixteen year old self.

After two years of playing at being an art student under the pretext of studying for ‘Inters’, I managed to fail spectacularly and only because of the efforts of my lovely Mum, was I accepted back to repeat the second year when I amazed everyone including myself by passing the Intermediate exam which opened the door to higher education.

Next came Swansea Art College where I undertook the N.D.D. taking painting at special level. I remember my first day, feeling terrified, looking up a stone staircase into the Art College, the smell of pencil sharpenings, oil paint, and clay, I knew my destiny awaited me at the top of those stairs. Coming from the damp grey days of the north west of England to Swansea, to the bright sunlight, the sea and the 60’s. I had the time of my life.

Later the N.D.D. National Diploma in Design was awarded degree status and everyone was able to convert.

As family life continued, I always was able to paint portraits as I cajoled my friends into ‘sitting’ for me in the evenings, persuaded by promised likenesses and glasses of wine until, in 1981, I went to Leeds University to do teacher training, then followed ‘The Teaching Years’. Tameside College, Oldham College,
Rochdale Metro. For nine years I was surrounded by art, the problem was very little of it was mine. I left.

I joined Saddleworth Craft Co-operative and shared an attic studio with a painter friend, Joyce Ella Parfitt. We had the tiniest gallery and sold our work. We both spent every Tuesday working with Manchester sculptor, Keith Hamlett in his Withington studio. A special time, which encouraged me to invest in my own small gallery and workshop where I was able to teach portrait painting two afternoon...

• Nationality: UNITED KINGDOM
• Date of birth : 1944
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary British Artists