Mary Hayward-Smith is a ceramics artist based in Hampton who also paints in oils. She is Head of the Art Department at St Catherine’s School in Twickenham. I was fortunate enough to do a virtual interview via email to ask her some questions on how our current crisis has affected her life as an artist.
How have you found COVID-19 to have affected your work?
COVID-19 is still a surreal experience. It hasn’t directly affected my work, as I work on a number of paintings at the same time in my studio, so that they hang together. My work explores vessels in a place, an interior or a colour. My paintings at times work with strong light or dark colours but since the lockdown I have been drawn to the lighter, paler tones.
Has it impacted the amount of work you usually do?
Being at home, I have started to organise and clear out old things. I have had time to look through sketchbooks, prints, drawings, old exhibition catalogues and gallery lists of returned and sold work. This has taken me back to different periods of my life, from doing my Art A Level, foundation course, degree and postgraduate, as well as times when I was a member of different artists groups and working in different studios. It is amazing that my work has elements that are still the same and that I am still attracted to the same stimulus.
Have you been allowed to go to your studio? If not, has this affected your work in any way?
I have continued to work in my studio, as I have an individual space so I am not interacting with anyone else. I have missed the social interaction with the artist whose studio is next to mine, as he has chosen to work at home. I have had the opportunity to spend more time there, over the Easter holidays and at the weekends. The fact that the sun has shone, the natural light in the studio has been lovely and the view over the river beautiful, has helped me to enjoy the time spent on my own!
By Millie Hindley
