'February, Dark and Cold,' 2019, a pot from 'And The Door Opened,'

'February Dark and Cold,' 2019, 63 h x 28 w cm 

Hand built earthenware pot, slip-painted inside and out with sgraffito drawing through the slip. Bisque fired. Smashed by dropping it into a box on the floor. The box helps to contain the flying shards but it also breaks the fall to some extent so the shattering isn't so dramatic. Some of the larger pieces were dropped again to encourage them to break a bit more. The shards were then collected up and glazed, then fired, and the pieces reassembled with some left out so the viewer can glimpse the images inside. Broken edges gilded in gold leaf.

About the pot
This is the account of a young woman, a fifteen year old girl at the start of her story, whose mother had a job that frequently took her abroad. She seems to have had no other parent or guardian so was left alone. The account is sparse. At some point she has a son, has a drink and drug problem, and also mental health difficulties. When W@W first meet her, she is being sold for sex on the London streets. They help her to 'return to her northern town,' to her family. She leaves again. It appears there is sexual abuse and/or exploitation but it is not spelled out. She returns to London and is street homeless - and immensely vulnerable to (further?) exploitation in prostitution. She describes the cold dark damp of February and the violence on the London streets. At some point she is arrested and is in prison for a while. Once out of prison she contacts W@W again and gets support with the drugs and alcohol problems. They also help her to find a housing solution. This very young woman with a history of abuse going back to her early teenage years now has an interlocking mix of problems which, together, make housing and a future life immensely difficult. The pot has a number of gaps and cracks. This young woman's process of mending her life is only midway, probably. She still has a long way to go. She misses her child. It is unclear where her mother and the rest of her family is. What is clear is that she knows W@W are there to provide support when she needs it.

Photo credit: Sylvain Deleu.

Women @the Well, (W@W,) is a women-only service located in Kings Cross dedicated to supporting women whose lives are affected, or at risk of being affected, by prostitution. It also provides support to exit prostitution. 

‘And The Door Opened,’ is a series of events with displays of Claudia’s pots, with talks and demonstrations that illustrate the lives of the women supported by W@W.

The aim is to enhance the public’s understanding of what prostitution is, to name the abuse and exploitation, and to show that, with the right support, girls and women do not need to live and die exploited in the sex trade – there are ways out.

'Street Exit,' 2019, A Pot from And The Door Opened

 

 

'Street Exit,' 2019, 60 h x 28 w cm 

Hand built earthenware pot, slip-painted inside and out with sgraffito drawing through the slip. The bisque fired pot was then smashed with a hammer - an uncomfortable process - avoiding hitting any of the women, just going for the bits in between. Shards collected up and glazed, then fired, and the pieces reassembled with some left out so the viewer can glimpse the images inside. Broken edges gilded in gold leaf.

About the pot
'Street Exit,' is based on an account given to me by Women @the Well. The images inside the pot show the living places of a homeless woman who met W@W outreach workers in Hackney. She describes 'sofa surfing' with friends who were 'heavy substance users.' She wanted to get away from them so she moved to a tent in a 'green area in Hackney.' She was being exploited in prostitution in both these situations.W@W helped find a place in a hostel and set in motion a support system to help her to reduce and eventually cease her substance use and also to find a way to exit prostitution with the ultimate aim of finding safe, permanent accommodation. The latter is a longer term and probably more difficult goal to achieve given the extreme shortage of safe housing for women in London - particularly those with such complex range of vulnerabilities.

The outside of the pot shows the progress of a woman from street to hostel based on details from the above account and some others along with my own encounters with street homeless women on public transport. Homeless women often avoid hostels because they are heavily male dominated and pose a real threat of sexual violence from the men there. They also avoid the street, if they can, for the same reasons - and also because of the cold, the wet and the sheer exhaustion of never really sleeping -  so public transport, being both public, rather than hidden, and a bit warmer and dryer is potentially a better option. The images above show a woman begging in the underground both at the station and on a train, sleeping - or trying to - in the station and on a bus and, finally, in a hostel sitting at table with a cup of tea contemplating the long and difficult process ahead. Like many of the accounts W@W have asked me to work with, this woman's life is very 'in process.' She has not yet reached a safe conclusion.

'Street Exit,' like 'Women @the Well,' the pot posted earlier, is a broken and mended pot. The images inside are visible through the gaps but only just. You do need to see the pot, 'in person,' to be able to see them. The shattering of the pot is a metaphor the broken feelings the woman expresses and her process of slowly piecing her life back together. It is an imperfect process. She is unlikely to reach a state of complete 'restoration,' but she can continue to live and may be able to thrive, in time. Memories and images of her past will impinge on her present from time to time, however. She may well not live in the past but the past, to some extent, will probably live in her, in her 'emotional muscle memory,' if I may put it that way, and it may be expressed through her emotional responses to things and to situations. I frame the fissures and and gaps in gold leaf to honour her survival and her struggle to proceed through life.

Photo credit: Sylvain Deleu.

Women @the Well, (W@W,) is a women-only service located in Kings Cross dedicated to supporting women whose lives are affected, or at risk of being affected, by prostitution. It also provides support to exit prostitution. 

‘And The Door Opened,’ is a series of events with displays of Claudia’s pots, with talks and demonstrations that illustrate the lives of the women supported by W@W.

The aim is to enhance the public’s understanding of what prostitution is, to name the abuse and exploitation, and to show that, with the right support, girls and women do not need to live and die exploited in the sex trade – there are ways out.

And The Door Opened: the Launch, November 25th, 2019

'And the Door Opened' launched, (officiall,) on November 25th, to coincide with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Held in the old Post Office in Wood Green, now occupied by Collage-arts and renamed Collage Artspace 4, we had a full house - 53 people came not including speakers or photographer.

Me speaking, introducing the project and welcoming the audience. Speakers on the left, from left: Caroline Hattersley, director of Women @the Well; Fiona Broadfoot, sex trade survivor, founder of Build a Girl, and one of three survivors bringing the judicial review, with the Centre for Women's Justice, to get criminal convictions removed from the record exited women; Julie Bindel, journalist, researcher and campaigner and author of The Pimping of Prostitution,' 2017, Palgrave Macmillan; and next to Julie Bindel is Julie McNamara who compered and led us into the minute's silence before I smashed the pot in the centre of the room. She also ended the event reading Audre Lourde's 'Litany for Survival.' McNamara is a performer, writers, activist and Artist direct of Vital Exposure, 'a passionate plea for social justice.'  Below is a montage of three views of pot then called 'Ten Thousand Men,' that was smashed. It will be renamed once it is rebuilt and images of the women painted inside become dominant.

The images of me smashing the pot and the two below them are by Sylvain Deleu, as is the one directly above, showing a detail of the inside of the pot smashed at the Filia Conference in Bradford. This pot is now called, 'I'm Not The Criminal,' and the image is of Fiona Broadfoot who led the March Against the Sex Trade in Bradford where the pot was smashed. The other images show the pots on display at the event, some complete, some in progress. All photos by attendees - except the one with Fiona Broadfoot talking to journalist, Josephine Bartosch - that one is also by Sylvian Deleu.

Women @the Well, (W@W,) is a women-only service located in Kings Cross dedicated to supporting women whose lives are affected, or at risk of being affected by prostitution, and helps them to find ways out.

‘And The Door Opened,’ is a series of events with displays of Claudia’s pots, with talks and demonstrations that illustrate the lives of the women supported by W@W.

The aim is to enhance the public’s understanding of what prostitution is, to name the abuse and exploitation, and to show that, with the right support, girls and women do not need to live and die exploited in the sex trade – there are ways out.

March Against the Sex Trade, Filia Conference 2019, Bradford.

The March Against the Sex Trade took place on the Saturday evening, October 19^th, at the end of day one of Filia conference. We assembled at twilight and processed to Centenary Square, the main square in Bradford. There we gathered in a circle and, after an introduction by Fiona Broadfoot, read out the names of all the women who had been murdered while exploited in prostitution. Shocking how long it took. As daylight was faded, and the sky went deep blue, we held up white roses and cards, each with the name of one murdered woman, and called out the names again, all together this time, like a Greek Chorus. Once all the names had been sounded at least three times, we had a minute’s silence to reflect on the harms of prostitution and sex trade, and to remember the lives and deaths of the women whose names were called. ‘The Invisible Man,’ the pot set up in the centre of the circle, ‘broke the silence,’ as it smashed on to the paved stone ground, releasing the images of women painted inside.

The memorial concluded with a song and a dance by an Argentinian woman, one of the conference speakers, whose daughter had been abducted, prostituted, and murdered in Buenos Aires.

Perhaps the most significant part though was this: I was about to collect and wrap up the shards when a young man who was passing by with his girlfriend, asked me if I knew Rebecca Hall, one of the women whose names were called out during the memorial. ‘I knew her,’ he said, ‘She was one of my best friends at school. This means so much to me.’ He then went and spoke to the woman holding the card with Rebecca’s name on it. You can read about Rebecca here.

The shards are now on their way back to the studio where they will be glazed and the pot reassembled but with pieces left out so you can see the images of the women painted inside. If all goes according to plan, the internal images – the women - will dominate. You will see them rather than the men depicted on the outside of the pot. The shattering and mending of a pot is a simple metaphor, reflected in the words, ‘I was shattered. Now I’m piecing myself slowly back together.’

Among my proudest moments, as a feminist and a potter, are when my pots are part of feminist activism, especially activism against the sex trade and the call for abolition. The March Against the Sex Trade was an action done as part of a feminist conference but in a public space. Reaching out to survivors, to family and friends of survivors, and to passers by  - the public in the most general sense, is surely the most important of any campaign. It was a huge honour to be part of it.

The names of the women murdered in prostitution in Bradford

May 21 2010, Suzanne Blamires, 36

April 26 2010 Shelley Armitage, 31

June 22 2009, Susan Rushworth, 43

April 26 2001: Rebecca Hall, 19

May 2000 Gemma Simpson, 23

October 1996: Caroline Creevy, 25

June 8 1995: Maureen Stepan, 18

1992 Yvonne Fitt, 32

1984: Deborah Kershaw,22

January 21 1978: Yvonne Pearson, 21

Wiki page – women UK-wide  - This is UK and Ireland - from 2010-today. 

Fiona Broadfoot is one of the women bringing the judicial review aiming to get convictions removed from the record of exited women and remove the need for disclosure which represents a major barrier for prostituted women who are trying to exit.

Photos from top: 1- Studio Twelve, 2 and 3 - Deb Ball, 3,4 and 5 - Claudia Clare

And The Door Opened, ceramic project with Women @the Well, (W@W) ***Covid19 intermission*** Events postponed until 2021. Watch this space for pop-up events in late 2020.

images: From top:
1. 'The Inivisible Men,' 2019. Smashed in Centenary Square, Bradford, at The March Against the Sex Trade, Filia international feminist conference, October 19th, 2019.
2. 'I'm Not The Criminal,' 2020, in its unbroken state, this was 'The Invisible Men.' The rebuilt  - or second state, is 'I'm Not The Criminal,' depicting the March Against the Sex Trade, led by Fiona Broadfoot, who organised it, and other sex trade survivors. (photos: Sylvain Deleu)
3. Me with 'I'm Not The Criminal,' 2020. (photo: Sylvain Deleu)

About the Project:

W@W is a women-only service located in Kings Cross dedicated to supporting women whose lives are affected - or at risk of being affected - by prostitution. They have asked me to make a collection of pots illustrating the stories of the women they work with and then to get both the pots, and the stories they tell, to as wide an audience as possible. 

‘And The Door Opened,’ is my response. In effect, it is a travelling ‘Work in Progress’ show – think ‘Open Studio' goes on tour. It is not a single exhibition, or any exhibition as such, it is a series of events with displays of my pots, demonstrations of pot-making, talks, seminars, and conversations  that, together, will illustrate the stories of women wanting to leave, ‘exit’ prostitution. 

The aim is to enhance the public's understanding of what prostitution is and to show that, with the right support, girls and women do not need to live and die exploited in the sex trade – there are ways out.

When and Where - latest updates and current schedule: 

Postponement to March 2021 expected depending on social distancing situation:
Ceramic ArtLondon, Central St Martins, Granary Building, 1 Granary Square, London, N1C 4AA

'And The Door Opened' is part of the Claytalks lecture series.

Postponement to 2021 expected, or possibly later in 2020: readings and pot smashing ceremony at Wood Green Library, 191 High Road, Wood Green, N22 6XD as part of Women’s History Month.

Postponed until 2021 - same dates expected: May 1^st-September 30^th Beyond the Streets and St.Botolph’s without Aldgate,

Aldgate High St, London EC3N 1AB
Beyond the Streets, an exiting service in East London, leads a walking tour in Whitechapel in opposition to the ‘Jack the Ripper’ tours, on the last Thursday of each of the five months. The tour talks about the lives of the women who were murdered, stopping at the places they lived, and also talks about the lives of prostituted people now. St. Botolph’s without Aldgate will have a display of pots from the project from May to September.
See Beyond theStreets website to book a place on the walking tour.

Postponed to 2021: Major event being planned for the end of September with St. Botolph's without Aldgate and Beyond The Streets. Updates as they come - discussion in progress. 

September 19^th and October 3^rd 2020 Southbank Open Spaces Trust with Crossbones Cemetery, Redcross Way, London, SE1 1SD  This event has been 'no platformed.'  You can read Josephine Bartosch's article about it here: 'The Silencing of Feminist Artists.'   I am looking for an alternative venue for a ceremonial smashing of a pot and for a permanent memorial. 
Cross Bones is the burial site of the ‘outcast’ people of the 17^th and 18^th centuries, including prostituted women.

Postponed until 2021: Southwark Cathedral, London Bridge, London SE1 9DA

Display of pots -no date set but last communication was that postponement was definite. This is not a cancellation.

Updates on this when I get them: Filia Conference, Portsmouth, 2021 
Display of And The Door Opened pots.

Updates when I get them: And the Door Opened will continue in 2021 in Stoke on Trent, Bradford and Leeds.

Past Events 2020:

Jan 23rd 2020: Talking about 'And The Door Opened,' at Zuleika.
Informal talk, discussing the project with Q&A. 

Jan 14th-31st 2020 Zuleika Gallery, 6 Mason's Yard, London, SW1Y 6BU
Display of four pots from 'And The Door Opened,' as part of a gallery artists show, 'January Edit.'  Zuleika's official launch of the project

Past events 2019

November 7th^th-December 31^st 2019 with Collage-arts at Collage Artspace 4 and Wood Green Library, Library Mall, 191 High St, London, N22 6DZ
Window display and display in library Nov 7th 2019 -Jan 6th, 2020

Launch with speakers and pot-breaking ceremony: Nov 25^th  (to coincide with UN 16 days campaigning to eliminate violence against women;) Details of event available here
Photos and brief summary here.

Demonstration of mending a pot with talk: Nov 30^th 12-4pm;

How to mend a pot - workshop for participants Dec 7^th 12-4pm.
Brief description and photos of both events here.

October 30th 2019: a talk about the project at Soho Farmhouse, Oxfordshire

October 19th 2019: unofficial launch - Filia Conference, Bradford, 'The Invisible Man' was smashed as part of the March against the Sex Trade. Pictures and description of the event here.