188 - Rediscovering Audrey Amiss

0:00Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Welcome to the International Schools Podcast on New York coast, John McDonough, lovely to be back. One of the things that you know we're called the International Schools Podcast and often we have guests that are not educators. We've had authors. We've had people that have started companies, people that have started organizations. We've really had a rich array of different voices to come and represent different ideas, different subjects. And today, one of the things I think is all educators. We have our own story. So we come to class. The students and our colleagues know us as a teacher or an educator or a leadership team member. And they know that profile and they kind of might know some things about you. But often there's a whole backstory. And it's that backstory that sometimes can be super,

1:01super interesting. And often that backstory is not shared, not because it's something that's a secret or anything. It might just be that you haven't had time or it's a story that's too long to explain over a cup of coffee in the staff room between classes. Anyway, today I am very excited. We have two educators that are going to share what I think is quite an incredible story about somebody and their family. And I think so often the stories that are part of our lives, of our families are what make us and often have an immense influence on who we are as an educator, our dispositions, how we engage with learning, support students, think about well-being, think about pedagogy and different learning. And I think sometimes the backstory or the family can be a really rich way to better understand what education is about, what learning is about. And today,

2:08our title is rediscovering Audrey Smith. And I have Audrey Amos. Thank you. Yes, I always do that. And I apologize. Amos, go to the show notes. You'll see and the poster. So my apologies. Steve and Kate, Steve has been an international educator leader in many different roles around the globe in Asia and Africa and Europe. And he currently lives in the Netherlands and is making his life as a writer with projects such as intense colors. It's the blog about Audrey Amos. And Steve, whetherl has been in education for over 30 plus years, has traveled and really has a rich experience of being in international schools. But now he's really focusing on his writing. But more interesting, this intense colors and his substack, which is telling us the story about

3:09Audrey Amos, who is the rant with him is a sister Kate, whetherl, who's a mathematics teacher in London after a long career in food as a chef, caterer, author and food stylist. She's made the move into secondary education and is working in the United Kingdom. Steve and Kate, thank you so much for joining us today. It's a real pleasure to have you come and share this story. It's great to be here. Thank you, John. So I could read a bio about your aunt, but I'm not because the story is kind of very interesting. And I really will encourage people to go to the show notes. There's a lot of links and blogs and the artwork and even the film and all kinds of other information that I would really invite you to go and explore that Steve and Kate have been very intimately involved in curating and we'll hear more about that. For both of you, before Audrey became known more widely

4:11as an artist, who was she to you as your aunt? Because she's your aunt. She's part of your family. And what do you remember most about her as a person? I don't remember a time when I didn't know her, because she was our aunt, my mother's sister, who lived in London, whereas we lived in the North of England, but the families met at least twice a year. So either Audrey and my grandmother would come up to Leeds for Christmas or we would go down in the summer. We also saw them as Easter. So she was always in our lives. So Kate, one of the things that maybe you can help us understand, who is she? Why are we even here on a podcast talking about your, no disrespect to all the aunts and uncles

5:12out there and cousins that all have amazing stories? But this is somewhat unusual. And I think what would be nice is to frame who she is, not only as your aunt, but why we're here today and the title of the podcast is rediscovering Audrey Amos. Well, that's that's the whole story actually. And this is what this is all about really. We couldn't have predicted that this would happen. As Steve said, she was our aunt. Very small family we had. Both our parents each just had one unmarried sister. So she was quite a key character in the background to the background of our family. She was not the easiest person to have in the room when we were children. She would either be very quiet or very loud. I mean, one or the other. And we always knew that she was an artist. We always knew that she had a vigorous intelligence and an excellent sense of humor.

6:14But why we're here now is because of the ridiculous series of coincidences or events that happened that led to her becoming known as an artist and as a protester against what would you say? Against, well, a protester for humane treatment of people with mental illnesses. And against almost the conventions of how people with mental illness as a treatise it. She was always manifestly that both an artist and a protester, certainly in that later years. And that's probably why we find ourselves where we are now. And this is the first time we've mentioned mental illness. And that was a feature of Audrey. From the age of about 25, she had a serious nervous breakdown when she was a student at the Royal Academy in London. And for the rest of her life, which she spent in London, she was very often

7:18hospitalised for her mental illness. She held down a job. She was a typist in London, but she was a constant worry for her mother with whom she lived and for our mother. But at the same time, she carried on this amazing rich and very prolific art practice. She carried on painting all the time. So after Audrey died, the family discovered kind of just how much she had created and kept. And what was that discovery like for you? And when did you realise her story was something much more important to share? Well, so I was I live in London and have done for many years since the 80s. So I've been the member of the family who's been closest to Audrey. So the whole discovery, the Tutankhaman like discovery of Audrey's, what was in Audrey's flat, sort of happened to me in many ways because

8:24I was the one who turned up when the police were there, when she died. She had, unfortunately, her body hadn't been discovered for quite some weeks. It was always ever going to be like that because she'd become somewhat of a recluse. So only from the family, very suspicious and paranoid of what we might do in the in a latter years. But she was seen by psychiatric nurse every couple of weeks, but somehow that had fallen through. So it was very, very unfortunate that the police had to bar the doors and had to do an investigation before we were able to get into the flat. And when we did, I think you derived by them, hadn't you? It was it was astonishing what we found found in there. We knew that she drew and painted. We didn't know how much she'd kept every single, every cupboard, every drawer that you might have thought was full of clothes and sheets and towels and what have you was just full of sketchbooks. It was, I'm rarely speechless,

9:27but it was it was jaw dropping. Not only the extent of her work, but also the utter squalla that she'd been living in. It was it was it was extremely difficult emotional time. So we realized that there was there was a lot there and we I think a lot of people find themselves in the circumstance when an elderly relative dies and they don't know what to do with the contents of the property. But for us, the initial instinct was to we knew the order he always wanted to recognise as an artist. We we think can we set up an exhibition and I put out various feelers and then then what happened? Well, the yes, it was the quantity which was so overwhelming. It was a small apartment. I recently saw that when David Hockney died, he left three 30,000 pictures and already left 50,000. Wow, it's incredible. Yeah. So the two beds in the

10:33spare room, not in the room that she slept, were collapsing under the weight of the pictures. She also wrote diaries. She also kept scrapbooks. The whole house was just completely full of all of those things. And I loved the art and so did Kate and we knew that we hoped that people would see it, but you know, you can't you can't dream that when somebody is unknown, what do you do? And the paradox turned out to be in order to get us any attention, we had to give it away. And very fortunately, we found the welcome collection in London who was interested because Audrey was a suffer from bad mental health her whole life and also had undergone all of the different treatments from the 1950s onwards. It was like a perfect storm of what they wanted at the welcome trust because they they were charity, very established charity, insanely wealthy charity

11:43that had always kept and they keep archives, medical archives and more often than not in the past, it had been the archives of the medics of researchers of that side. And they we hit a moment when they began to think that they really needed to look at the patients, the archives and the patients angle and they began collecting them. But Audrey had the perfect combination of clearly social patient of diaries, of a record of her mental health history and of art and some really beautiful art as well, excellent stuff. So it had everything that they wanted. So they from us thinking, oh, we'll just set up a little exhibition somewhere or or I tried to get in touch with the best and mental health hospital see if they put on an exhibition. I mean, it was just was scrabbling around suddenly. There was this extraordinary offer. And they asked how did the welcome

12:44trust know about you? Did you reach out to them? It was it was a it was a silly coincidence. I was I was in the school playground and my children were at a primary school in London and I was having a conversation with friends about this extraordinary thing that was happening in our lives. And one of the mother walked past so I didn't know very well over heard what I was saying and said, oh, I think I know she worked for the welcome trust. I think I know somebody might be interested in that. Oh, that was interesting. Amazing. Really amazing. So here you have it, the welcome trust, which is a charity that's very well funded, decided that this perfect storm of paintings, journals and also your aunt being a patient, neurodiverse patient was that kind of the perfect storm as you said. So what happened there? Did you then start moving things out of the house? How did that kind of because the way you describe it,

13:50this bed these beds that are almost falling apart every drawer and everything being full of things. How did that transition happen? We'd moved this all out of the house by that time. We hadn't. No, okay. We moved them in London. We'd moved the paintings out of the house. But the welcome trust came to the house to collect all the scrapbooks and those things. There's no way we could have I mean we've got a sizable Victorian house here in London but there's no way we could have accommodated everything. Everything here without taking over a whole room at least. So we took the paintings out. I remember for my 50th birthday I had that partially in the garden and we hung all these paintings around the garden. It was absolutely lovely, lovely day. But the rest of the stuff stayed and apps in clap them in the flat. But very soon I forget the order of events but very quickly they turned up with their professional professionalism and bands and packing cases and

14:50took everything the entire contents of the of the flat including all of the diaries, all of the arts, all of the scrapbooks and also other bits and pieces like the contents of drawers and and so on. So there wasn't really much left. So while you were children and you talked about this really rich relationship that you had with her and the kind of regular family reunions and you know your mother, her sister and those contacts did you know this was all happening? Did you would you see it or was it that you never went into the house? We often went into the house. For the first 30 years that she lived in London she lived with her mother and things were much more under control in terms of there were two people living in the house and so most of the art that she produced was after her mother died in sketchbooks and that was the last 30 years of her life. But we knew she was

15:54an artist. She would sketch there are sketches of both Kate and me that she did either at our house when she visited or when we visited down in London and so there's all of that. We knew that she was an artist. The way that she was important to me as well is that because she lived in London and otherwise I wouldn't have had this ability to stay frequently in London. When I visited her in London she would encourage me to do things. She encouraged me to go to a Picasso exhibition. She encouraged me to go and watch the House's Apollomance to go to Wimbleton to go to Speaker's Corner and listen to the speakers. It was almost like she gave me an alternative cultural education. Wonderful that's amazing. So okay welcome house now has these things but there's a twist to the story which I think makes it even more interesting because I actually I know what the twist is

17:02because I seen it tell us about the twist because then this kind of became there was almost like a side bar adventure or new destination for her story. Yeah well we they received all of this stuff from the whole archive, the whole contents of all these flats and it felt like a while before they we didn't know what was going to happen. We thought they might be preserving it, they'd archive it or they'd catalog everything but it wasn't really happening but then they at that time this is another coincidence because they don't do it anymore. The welcome we're giving bursaries for what was it called? The screenwriting fellowship. Screenwriting fellowship for inviting directors writers to come and choose, look through the archive, see what they can find and Carol Morley the filmmaker was one of those people. Can you tell us a bit about Carol Morley

18:04for maybe the audience members that don't know her just kind of contextualize her? Yeah she's a British film director, she's about our age. She's made several films, one is called The Falling in which she gave an unknown actor called Florence Pugh her first role. She's made films about her own life, one called The Alcohol Years, a film that I was already aware of before we met Carol was called Dreams of a Life about a woman who died in London and Carol tried to write that life about her. So I was aware of Carol and then one day this email came through saying would you talk to this film director who's very interested in Audrey's story and would like to make a film? I thought oh documentary but it turns out that it wasn't a documentary, it was a feature film with actors playing Audrey playing on mother and well known British actors as well.

19:11So your audience may not be familiar with Monica Taulyn, Kelly Donald and Jeanine McKee but your British audience will be. Absolutely so she writes to you why did she decide because Kate you're telling us that they can go in there and poke around and maybe something inspires it. I'm wondering what grabbed Carol more or less attention to then reach out to you to. Carol was always all her films revolve around women and women who are interesting, women who are fighters and what was the line that she said she was looking through the archives and she hadn't really found anything then somebody said have you seen this archive? Yeah they said are you interested in the woman who kept the packaging from everything she ever ate and Carol said yes. So this is something so your aunt if she would have say some baked beans or she would have some spaghetti or whatever she would take

20:11the packaging and put it in a journal? Yes I think that it started because one of her psychiatric nurses was worried about what she was eating so the psychiatric nurse asked her to keep the packaging from the food that she'd eaten and Audrey transformed this into collecting these packages. Not as much as baked beans because they wouldn't stick, sometimes the tin wouldn't stick in other pages but she put for example a little mini cereal packet stick it in and she'd annotate it saying that this cereal packet reminds her of some sort of Greek myth or or she'll describe how she enjoyed the food or where she bought it or a conversation that she might have had with somebody when she bought the food so these scrapbooks that were on the two beds in the in the in the in the spare room there were like 250 of them there so many of these scrapbooks contained packaging but beautifully annotated and beautifully laid out almost collage-like

21:12and all of these scrapbooks which were going to be the first thing that we'd have to put in a basket to get rid of are all now have their own individual would handmade wooden box and they make decisions such as I mean the same people who will the concidators that look after Greek papyruses are paying attention to the Audrey scrapbooks so for example there might be as as you might imagine there's this food packaging that had been collected since the 80s 90s there might be a little bit of mold involved so they had to make decisions whether they lift the mold off or whether they preserve the mold as part of as it being sort of interpretive to keep them keep the the variety of them that's amazing yeah I mean really really I mean you cannot invent it you turn to me and the scrapbooks which of course would have started out flat are so full of stuff that the concertina open so they're all like that so the welcome has built a special stamp

22:16so that these things can be kept open so because they've also all been photographed and they have to have to be a 3d photograph and the reason for that is that that's the most perishable stuff okay I think it's going to last too long the the cellar tape is decaying there are there's there's a vermin in there sometimes and so to preserve it they sometimes put it in big balloons and fill it with nitrogen filled them with nitrogen to stop it rotting away but the I have no idea what their budget says but there are full-time people preserving this that's amazing I do think that you know well one thing it's great to hear that there's an organization that's nonprofit that takes the time and care for this very specific kind of profile the idea of a neurodiverse person their history their medical and then also the art or whatever creativity they

23:17generated as part of their persona I think that's as fastening I agree with you Steve that's amazing now you said that Carol Morley came and you were like okay documentary how did you react when she said a feature film because your mother is actually in the movie so I'm just curious how did that did she talk to you did she say okay I don't want to do a documentary feature or was this something that she decided and then she brought you on board she she always wanted to film to have a flavor of Audrey's about about Audrey's character and it went through all sorts of different guises didn't it there was that I mean she talks us through a number of of the concepts that she had and settled finally on this idea of a road movie have we said the name of the film yet no you have not it's called typist artist pirate king and the reason it's called typist artist

24:19pirate king is that back in the day in your passport you had to write down your what your profession was and so she wrote down typist artist pirate king and so when when Carol Morley saw this that was why she decided to call and name the film after this so she she wanted to create an engaging drama which was a road movie which had aspects of all these little bean yets from all these Audrey's life but maybe place in a different order and certainly place placed in different locations I think it was always Audrey's sorry Carol's intention to make it into a drama because the story the way that she wanted to sell the story about the fact that Audrey with mental illness was frequently delusional it needed some sort of fictionalized format and that's what she went for and throughout the movie all her artwork is often shown their quotes so it sounds like even though

25:25it's fictional she really honored Audrey's artwork by making sure it was part of the story because having watched the movie their moments where their transitions or something is mentioned and then you have the picture of an artwork or even the journals was that something that you were involved so she comes to you did she need your permission how does I'm curious how does that work they didn't actually she actually use any of the actual artwork in the film I don't know they have to recreate it because she was she knew she knew that she was going to have to because we have copyrights we don't own we don't own these anything but but we we have copyrights so they were being quite careful they never asked actually can we use your pictures it was very it was very much car thing and when it came to filming it was during Covid it was at tail end of Covid or which is she's very keen that we didn't didn't turn up I joined during the filming that was that was quite clear but it's worth emphasising that also she really wanted to have the Audrey character

26:31and Monica Dolan who played Audrey was very keen to get the accent correct and and and I mean there was there were only photos a few photos of Audrey there's no well there's a tiny bit of film footage but really no film footage of Audrey so she had no idea of what she actually looked like the dress that she was clothes that she wore were very Audrey-esque and Gina McKee who played our mum she met went up and met mum and dad and had had a meal with them and picked up on quite a few of mum's mannerisms and her general manner and her accent and it was it was even though Gina McKee is physically very different from our mum she she was on county some of the some of the mannerisms that she put in there so they said there was there was a definitely attempt to to make the even though it was fictional to make the characters very true so how they were you well so how does it feel for you to now today because you know your aunt and suddenly you have these

27:37two twists first of all the welcome house you're in the playground where your children are and some lady says hey and then that kind of becomes its own narrative and then by coincidence there's a filmmaker in the room she sees something and then reaches out just curious how was it for you and your family to suddenly have this story of this aunt that you knew so intimately and knew the struggles the all the ups and downs how did it make you feel what today what are you thinking because Steve we're going to come to a bit about what you're doing to further continue her legacy but I'm just as two educators human beings how does this all feel um I'm delighted um very very pleased about how things have gone um everything that Carol did um I think has been very in sight for and respectful of Audrey's memory which which could have been a worry I mean we we had all the

28:40way through we had discussions about um would we be doing this um would Audrey have approved because there's no way to know um Audrey lived a very isolated life um lotterly she did try to get herself exhibited but there was there were ethical questions and ethical discussions which we had um about it um but uh very I'm very pleased with the way it's gone since the beginning I have been feeling and saying out loud uh this thing has legs I it's I somehow something told me that one thing would lead to another so when we found it uh well you know what's happened we found it um and then it was taken by the museum and then the film and everything it's almost like we always look at each other and go well we expected that um I don't we didn't but it suddenly feels natural yeah and of course now we have the the major exhibition which is happening at the Welcome Trust as well

29:42in in London which opened in July um again a phenomenal amount of money was was spent on it it's it's you know for for example on the wall of the exhibition um which is running for seven months um carved into the wall is um in neon or is is is is a psychiatrist's armad um you know just the the the the protest posters that she made uh which she went took on demonstrations are now inside vitreens labels all vam is 2002 watercolour on on paper I mean it's you couldn't you couldn't invent it as that and we have the joy next week of um attending the private view of the exhibition that's opening in the northern gallery of contemporary art up in sondland where she came from which is like a amazing homecoming thing that all you finally get to her exhibition in sondland where she has quite a following because they're in that we're not going to tell in the story but

30:45there's something that relates to what you're saying in the film and I'm not going to give it away but uh having watched it now it's like it's clicking it's like oh very cool really emotional really emotional and I think I mean the London exhibition was amazing very corporate really really sort of it's almost it almost felt a little bit swamping in a way it's like it's so dignified all drees work this one feels not like a like an exhibition in a village hall but you know in relation to what the welcome trust have done it is it is like that I mean it's a really established new gallery it's the opening exhibition and it's a Audrey going back to sondland and it's it's it doesn't still doesn't feel like the end does it does it? No no no it has legs I don't know what's going to happen next so if I can just quickly say to tell you the the London exhibition the the organizing principle is Audrey actually tried in London to organize exhibitions of her work

31:47and succeeded in fact in doing one person shows renting a room taking her stuff sitting there all day getting some people coming and so on and they've done they've done they the welcome did amazing research to locate as many of the locations and pictures as possible and they recreated the exhibitions that she did so there's about six exhibitions which Audrey did in the 1980s and 1990s which if you go to welcome now until January 2027 you can see set out exactly the same way and for them that they answered the ethical question of would Audrey have approved well she would because she in fact she curated this exhibition because all of the pictures were chosen by her on the other hand oh gone no no no please please go ahead right on the other hand the sondland exhibition is all of her early work that she did when she was it's the name of the sondland

32:53exhibition is kitchen sink realism and it's what she did when she lived in sondland or when she was a student at the Royal Academy okay that is so interesting and I and I think what's you know as you're talking and it just kind of mind-boggling the the amount of effort and respect and kind of creativity that they're trying to you know the welcome house and in sondland to really honor this human being this person who as you said was isolated for many many years and very likely never had the recognition that maybe she wanted or tried to get and that's often the the the talent of being an artist right you write the best pop song nobody ever hears it etc etc and then there is these coincidences what about for your father and mother what was their journey with this whole story well unfortunately mum died before the film came out so she had the opportunity she she knew that

33:58the welcome trust had taken all of the work she knew that the film was being made she actually visited the set which was because in the film they recreated all these flat in a in a in a studio in Leeds which is nowhere mum mum dad lived at the time so she saw the set but she died before the film came out which was very sad so she never saw herself being portrayed by Gina McKee so she was always mum mum grew up with Audrey in in the 30s 40s and they were very very close but she did feel that she'd rather lost Audrey when she had her first from when she'd had her first nervous breakdown or as it was called at the time in her 20s early 20s and it's it's it's been extremely hard since then and but for dad it's very difficult because he was never particularly

34:59Audrey never particularly liked dad and and was very nice to him and and I think she rather felt that he'd stolen my mum from the family he felt with a very small family and and always always resented resented that and and wasn't very nice to him at all so he's he's he's um he just wants mumber he doesn't want any of any of this he's 96 96 like he's he's amazing he's really strong you know what you want and he he doesn't want he doesn't want any of this fair enough and that's that's his prerogative I would say that he whenever the conversation comes up he doesn't want to know about it but he gives us his blessing every time to pursue pursue it the way we're pursuing it and and you really it you know both of you Kate and Steve have been the ones that have driven this and and really the way you're talking we can you sense the love and the care and also how important this is for you as your legacy more the legacy of Audrey now Steve you have also started to do your

36:06not the welcome house but you've also invested a lot of time uh to continue her legacy through social media talk to us a bit about how that came about and what you're doing because uh our audience again in the show notes Steve has put those things there and uh definitely worth following and having a look through Steve tell us a bit about this social media not campaign but you suddenly decided okay I need to do something more than just the welcome house yes it grants up on me a little bit um I knew that the exhibition in London was opening in July and uh the the sundown won a little bit later um and I suddenly felt uh there is there is no Audrey Ames presence on the internet apart from the wiki pdf page which she has which the welcome made um and I've tweaked a little bit and welcome itself but there isn't Audrey Ames.com for example so I bought that and to just to link this into your

37:08international schools podcast um I was as you know uh an ict facilitator for several years and um I um suddenly realised I have these skills that I've been teaching to teenagers um and if I have any pride I'm going to make my own website and which I did um so Audrey Ames.com they can go to and I've also been blogging um at a sub stack yes so um yes and then your Instagram is fantastic which I follow and I love every day I get treated to another piece of artwork or something talk a bit about that why did you on top of the sub stack and the website then say okay Instagram I don't know is there a facebook there is facebook as well um it was all too I suppose my I think my motivation is attention for Audrey that's that's the main thing and so one thing that's just being quite

38:08interesting to me is I was away from social media for 10 years um and now I'm doing this um and it's extremely hard it's extremely hard to get any traction uh I don't make videos and I don't put music on them um uh and and also I don't engage as I should do because um I'm trying to do this um and have a life as well absolutely now you both have children what is the legacy for your children because we talked about your mother and father of course your grandmother is as passed away since but uh for your children how did you explain the story did they do they have a a connection to her or is this kind of suddenly coming into their lives unexpected my my my children although you know I've lived in London all along only my oldest um ever was in all these presence aged one right so so that was the last time one of the last the last time I saw Audrey

39:12yeah was when um before we were it was clear that we weren't welcome um I I I went there with with with Matthew I mean I think I think what's worth mentioning is that um you know Audrey saw the world in a really different way from us and that was difficult to understand when we were children it was difficult to understand sometimes her behaviors um she saw the world in a different way she saw the world really intensely she she drew and painted what she saw in front of her now it skipped a generation but my children um all of them have been touched with that they're all neurodivergent um and my oldest in particular um did art at college went to university did art had to leave the course um with it a lot a lot a lot of a lot of a lot of difficulties so it's interesting that and it all happened really all of it started happening after all we died

40:20so it the whole issue of neuro neurodivergence has just um almost swamped swamped me and my my family um since since that happened we we we're on a slightly easier path now they're older you know so it's an understanding themselves a little bit better but um and that extends also into my understanding as a teacher of the students in front of me so neurodivergence is uh I teach in an indisity London school um state school um and so you know in front of me I have um 32 nervous systems and then they're all different and there's a lot of neurodivergence and my experience with um not so much with Audrey because I wasn't really engaged with that I witnessed it but it's been passed on to a degree in that I'm you know in to my to my children and um it's really helped in my in my teaching practice in both relationships with students and in understanding

41:24how to how to operate and how to really accept really accept that everybody thinks in a really different way and I really appreciate the world sees the world in a different way and I think that's a really important message is being able to accept what these differences and in a neurodiverse dynamic sometimes they can be quite challenging as you shared with your aunt you were no more welcome there was kind of a cut with the family so there are these moments that are super challenging and it's just so rich to hear how you through that experience and your own uh personal life have really been able to look at the this dynamic of neurodiversity in the classroom very differently that's it's very rich Steve you also have children yes and how have they reacted? well I'd like to describe the um opening of the exhibition which was in London um in in July we were invited um so my two children two of Kate's children were there all demonstrably

42:33extremely proud um to be part of this thing um our second cousin Douglas from the United States came over um the whole thing was very much a celebration of family um and everybody and including my children were very um pleased to see it and uh and we I was pleased that to have that occasion when everyone was there uh as well so yes it's it's it the definitely is a family strand to it's they they feel connected to Audrey nice so you've gone through this experience it's still going on as you said it has its own legs so we don't know where this is going to go I'm just wondering you know we talked about neurodiversity there's this idea of creativity and when you both have been educator Steve extensive experience in international schools Kate you're working in the local uh public school

43:34system in England but you also have a lot of experience working in industry what are some of the messages that now when you confront kids and you see somebody that's creative or even a colleague or a friend what do you think Audrey has taught you about creativity and resilience or um that I think that um you never know what's around the corner um and anything is possible um and also that one thing that I've learned about Audrey is that um there is a there's a growing community of people who have been to the exhibition who've seen the film um who've uh been to the archive because anyone can go and look at what Audrey's work in uh in the welcome and they build their own uh vision of Audrey and her words speak to them very much uh and I think that I think and that's

44:35what I have learnt that um that we all take our own message out of things and and their valid interpretations um and the fact that they don't know um how difficult Audrey was um towards her own mother and her own sister um does not invalidate the uh the value that they feel uh in uh in the work on the words that they see absolutely and and I think that's so interesting how you frame that is that everybody sees it through a different light a different interpretation and whatever it is because some as you say the backstory might not be that obvious for people that just come to the welcome house or end up in sunderland uh so that they're walking away with this whatever this inspires them that's what they're going to build their understanding of your aunt Kate how about for yourself? I'm sorry I think you went on a slightly different track from

45:37where I was going to be looking at this I mean I remember Audrey when I was when I was a child um she was clearly neurodivergent I didn't know what that was because I was a child but my parents were were if Audrey started talking very loudly it was like all you know calm down calm down or if she was very quiet um then that was sort of accepted and and at least she's not making a fuss sort of things so so neurodivergent in those days was not um not embrace not um not it was just sort of controlled if you like um or there was an attempt to make to control it but now in schools and certainly in the school where I am where inclusion is um very high on the agenda and we've recently been inspected we've been found to be exceptional in that area so it's it's a school where we really do look at individual students and um and and and see how do they

46:38learn uh why are they not learning what will make their lives easier um in school what will make it easier to get the information across to them what are they good at what do they want to do um what after school clubs will help them as a real focus on um you know the others the others who you can who can work who can sit down and and i'm a math teacher so there there are some some students who intersect it and just do everything sit down and do 10 questions and focus for five seven minutes without looking up there are there's always a 20% of the class and we do attract quite a lot of neurodivergent children their parents want to uh the children to go to us who can't do this so what do we do about that and it's always about develops always about the relationships that you build up with these students and the trust that they have in you um and the patience and the and the sort of simplicity of the delivery that that really helps that but we're constantly constantly trying to work out how to allow these

47:41children to grow in the school environments at the beginning you didn't mention the mental you use we use the term mentalism but the neurodiversity of your aunt did you are you hesitant to bring that up because you think that then gives it a different story i'm just curious about the tension of her neurodiversity and this unbelievable creativity and you know generation of just piles of very rich artistic material and journals what is that creative tension that maybe you both felt as you're telling the story and wanting to make sure that Audrey is remembered does that i don't think there's um if i'm a i don't i don't think there's any hesitation on our parts to um uh to talk about the neurodiversity about the the the the mental health issues where i

48:43think where we do hesitate is um in talking about the difficulties that Audrey's um condition behaviors um how they impacted on our on our family and that's something that feels uncomfortable and difficult uncomfortable talking about it now because we we we we we we we're very cautious aren't we about um about talking about how how how difficult how difficult it was and and you know without going into any details you know there were there were the weeks at a time that our mum was um distracted distressed by this and she always insisted i was the only member of the family in London very small family as i said only member an immediate member of the family in London she insisted that Audrey should never know where where i live so i didn't get pursued in any way or have you but it this is this is where we this is this is that's the uncomfortable bit i think yeah absolutely no and

49:45i think you know for many people that uh have the experience or live with neurodiverse or have interactions that sometimes can be very very challenging uh as also very rich because you talked about this importance of having these relationships and really accepting different voices and different perspectives and being open to that Steve you are a musician you write what have you what would be kind of the thing from Audrey that you want people to understand about creativity what was it about her because she was she protested she traveled i think she was in china in the early eighties she was very unique and and very committed to some of her beliefs you as a musician and an artist and a writer and of course an educator what are some things that you know Audrey has told us what are some things we should walk away with understanding about this

50:47creative process um what i think what i like the most about Audrey's work or what i think is most important about Audrey's work this is my own view um is that she was an innovative artist and the art that she did later in life i think is her most important work um she did it in a very what would appear to be a very haphazard way um she uh she would take ten or fifteen seconds to do a picture but that was deliberate in order to catch the essence of the thing that she was seeing now what i'm noticing with the social media uh campaign um consistently is that her early work is what people like which is the traditional work the trained work before she went off out on the limb really um she described herself as avant-garde and i find that very interesting um uh and i don't know i i i keep on uh in the blog i am trying to push uh the idea of of of the so new work is the

51:54most important um but it doesn't i don't know it doesn't matter that's only my opinion yeah yeah no i i think that's very interesting because in the movie there are moments where you have that more recent work just a brushstroke and then a very provocative sentence and and i like you i found that very interesting uh in the poster we've taken actually uh with your permission we took a picture of your mother playing piano at fourteen that Audrey had done which is kind of more of a treat that's i think for audits that's what you're talking about the more traditional kind of set piece than the abstract instant the kind of surreal uh approach yes yeah that particular picture is has got some of the most likes on instagram um it's what it's what people like and you know who might have say they're wrong and they're not wrong um she she because she was a she was a talented artist

52:55and talent will out um and and whether there is ever um the attention for the lace to work or not i i don't know yeah and that's kind of the mystery and we'll see right as social media and the algorithms and but more importantly so if you're in the uk there's the exhibit in sundauland where in sundauland if our audience members are near there could they go to that it's it's the national gallery of contemporary art in sundauland it's a new part of this this the the city um that's being built you know that one of these areas which has been redeveloped um so that's that's where the exhibition will be in sundauland. It's in a building called culture house okay uh so the northern gallery of contemporary art has been in various sites for the last 50 years and it's got this new home it shares it with um with other things as well um and then yet and so the other thing is people could go to the welcome house as i understand you can book a

53:59time and spend some time in the archives am i correct in saying yes well there are two things there's there's the exhibition which you can just walk into that's free until february next year um and yes yeah online you can become a member of the library you can order some of order's works there are many which are actually scanned online as well but you can you can see things and you can have them in your hands and have a look at them and you can read her diaries. Unbelievable what a great opportunity so if you're in sundauland or in london make sure that you consider the welcome house and spend some time with the exhibit and the sundauland exhibit starts when 12 of september 12 of the september so just around the corner if we're wrapping up and and thank you both because i know this has been a roller coaster of emotions and work and also how you know this story has taken so many different ways from the moment you were in the playground

55:03Kate uh just talking casually about this situation with your aunt what would be a message you would want people listening to understand about when they see a child or a student or an adult and they're being creative or they're trying to do something that might not always make sense but there is a creative process with it what would be a message that maybe you would like us to leave with as we think about Audrey Bemis. Well I think as teachers and educators we're so busy aren't we and it's it's um it's just to show interest to show interest and and and show just just tell every child and every my own children's angles that they've all found mainstream school extremely difficult and when they found a teacher or any adult in the school paid the attention paid the attention paid attention to what they were actually doing and how they were actually thinking it made so

56:06much difference and they're the teachers they're the educators that they really really really remember so that's what i'd say yeah yeah Steve um and courage creativity um is what i think don't try to control creativity um just let children and and i suppose don't don't lose it as you get older um because i said we're sort of unlearning it as we get older and anything you can do to make that not the case yeah is uh is great i love that we're unlearning it as we become adults the idea of creativity and i think today as both of you're saying you're really talking about that human at the center the human touch being able to be creative without a device or anything just letting your head go on adventures and come up with something uh that's meaningful Kate and Steve thank you so much to our audience i want to again remind you the show notes do go there uh there's also a link

57:09about the movie and i think you can see the movie on Netflix am i correct no longer i think but okay film institute website yeah so ordreamers.com there are links to the film to the blog and everything else thank you so as always uh thank you for our audience we continue to have more people joining LinkedIn really like how people are reaching out commenting on the different guests and shows and i know people are reaching out because guests have said oh i got some uh contacts so this is nice to have this conversation go beyond this walls i know steven Kate are extremely warm and kind educators and i know they will not mind at all uh you reaching out to them and uh asking questions or even uh if you want to learn more about what they're doing on that note i want to thank everybody for your listening if you like these kind of shows make sure you uh like it or even write a review

58:15on the favorite podcast that you do to encourage other people to know about the wonderful stories Kate and Steve again thank you so much for being on the international school podcast and thank you for sharing this wonderful story and uh i know because we've talked and i got to do some research i've become a huge fan of our artwork and i really appreciate the instagrams every day when i get to see another painting so steve thank you for further curating that and Kate all the best to the school year because i hear you're starting uh this week right tomorrow tomorrow okay thank you so much both of you thank you john thank you very much john thanks for inviting us