ABSTRACT
David Tushingham Drawing on a Mother’s Experience was one of the very few experiences in theatre where I’ve been made to laugh hysterically and cry at the same time. I was very struck by your courage and naked honesty in that piece. It was very, very powerful. Bobby Baker It came out of such a passionate set of feelings, of experiences, that the conviction that I had to try and communicate this with people was very strong. I still find that, performing it. I feel just as angry, just as desperate to explain that process because the things that happened to me and the significance and importance of what happens in daily life isn’t looked at and acknowledged. It took me a long time to work out the form of that piece and what information would go into it. Obviously it comes very much from my interest in painting. And also it was essential that the painting was made of food, because food is like my own language. Food has this wonderful endless way in which it can be used: the fact that it can be eaten or thrown on the floor – or I can eat it – or other people can eat it. It has such possibilities. So that was the obvious thing to draw with and I just loved the idea of doing something like a painting in public, rather than to do it in a studio, but to actually act it out or paint it in front of people. And then to use foodstuffs that reflected a whole range of things that happened, were happening in my life and still happen. I’m still quite surprised by the strength of the image. It’s framed, it’s put within this sheet on the plastic sheet on the floor, so it’s not going to
make too much mess. And then the last thing I do is I roll myself up in it to show how you take your past experience into your future life. And I’m absolutely covered in it, from head to toe. But what’s so extraordinary: because I’ve covered the whole sheet at the end with a layer of flour, that obliterates the image but it comes through anyway on the other side, this spectacular, dripping stain of treacle or blackcurrants or what have you. And then I do this little dance to celebrate the whole experience. D I found that very disturbing, that final image; for me it seemed to be an image of grief, sackcloth and ashes … It seemed a kind of abasement too, the way you dirtied yourself, smeared yourself. B Well, it was the final taboo thing of throwing food on the floor – but playing with that idea. To actually roll in it and get all besmirched and stained is obviously very shocking. What’s interesting about it – and I find it very disturbing – is that people, all the way through, find things funny, hysterically funny. It’s on the edge of what’s safe and what’s not safe and the humour – it’s almost the only way to be able to cope with what’s happening – is my reaction to difficulty, but it’s also how society, the audience, react to this. D You mentioned that you were aware of having evolved food as an artistic vocabulary for yourself. Were you conscious of that when you went through the experience of motherhood – and do you think that that made having a baby and breastfeeding and all this sort of thing a different experience for you? B When I had small children I found the first few years so shocking, so extraordinary, I couldn’t believe what was happening to me, what was actually going on. It left me unable for a while to know how to articulate that or proceed.
