After seven weeks of solid work, fuelled by unaccustomed amounts of coffee, cocktails, ready meals and ice cream, the date of my solo show at 44AD rolls around. Although I thought I’d hit the ground running for those first few weeks, I was just fooling myself. I’d obviously been a real slack-Alice, because the amount I get done in the last week is about the same as in the first four combined. I call my show STILL KNIVES, based on the blurb I’d written for my multicoloured knife pieces. I use it as a starting point for the info I display in the gallery.

This work is centred around giving visual voice to the sensation of invisible pain, whether is be depression, disability or bereavement. Ultimately, we do the best we can, making of our lives something beautiful, hopeful and bright. But, underneath, the pain is still there. Underneath, there are still knives.

And then, to underscore why I’ve chosen to use such mundane household materials, I add…

Beauty is present, not just despite our difficulties, but often because of them – because of the will it has taken to work around them. Small things can be worthy, inspiring and up-lifting. Small steps count.

However, it is not the knives, but the razor blades, that make it onto the poster. Katie, at the gallery, thinks they’d make a great design for an Argyle sweater. People keep asking me if I’ve printed them or made a stencil. To which I invite them to look closer. ‘Oh!’ they say, once they spot the sharp edges.

It takes me until seven in the evening to hang all the work properly, ie., straight. But I’m pretty pleased with the results. I hang the wooden knife sculpture from a chain made of fancy safety pins, and put it in the centre of the first room, plonking a small plinth underneath to stop people walking into it. I don’t know if this creates some kind of air vortex, or if there’s an attractive-smelling preservative in the wood, because I’m constantly having to chase flies away from it. They buzz around beneath it the entire week, and then tentatively sit, adoringly, on the lower knives, as if they’ve just discovered their God. I can pretend a lot of things are Art (‘oh yes, that tear in the fabric is deliberate, and symbolises one’s fractured sense of self’), but a handful of delirious flies is something even I can’t pull off.

The show opens on Tuesday, and I get a steady stream of visitors all week. Many of my friends drop in, which is lovely, and I generally count about forty people viewing my work per day. I’m delighted at the amount who want to talk to me about individual pieces, and who want to tell me their own stories, either as artists themselves, or as people bereaved.

One sweet girl stands looking at the bouquet of knives for a long time. I’ve called the piece With Sympathy. When she finally looks up at me, tears are silently slipping down her cheeks. “That’s exactly what it feels like when someone has died and the house is full of flowers,” she says.

I’m rather mortified to have produced such a strong reaction, but she carries on talking and looking at the rest of the work, and then thanks me when she leaves. It was cathartic for her, I think. And although I did this residency for myself – because I needed the experience – I feel touched that it is having such resonance with other people.

On Wednesday I give a talk about the work on show to a group of associate artists from 44AD. I tell them about losing Steve, and how my life changed, and about how desperately I’d needed a new challenge. I tell them how the pain of coming back to a place with so many memories of him prompted this project. And I talk about how each of the elements in the work represent different things in the grieving process, particularly the use of negative space. How what isn’t there can sometimes be more relevant than what is. I get a bit choked up, but that’s okay. And when I finish, one of the other artists has gone round and put four red dots on his favourite pieces. So, counting the one I’ve already promised to a friend, that’s five pieces sold. I’m delighted, because that means I’ve covered the travelling costs now too!

On Friday evening I have my Private View, which means I get to invite all my favourite people to come and have a glass of wine with me, whilst I apologise for not getting over to see them while I was here. Sadly, some people can’t make it – Infinity is away, and my son Joe (who has terrible sleep problems) nods off on his sofa and misses the whole thing.

One of the perks that came with the residency is a very low commission percentage from the gallery. This allows me to put a very affordable price on all my work, and my friends and family snap it up like hot cakes, bless them. I am totally humbled by their support of me and their enthusiasm for my work. I offer all of them ‘mates rates’ and several of the sweethearts actually refuse the discount.

I sell another eight pieces, which is great! What is not so great is that I’ve been too busy to eat much, and have now been drinking. People are arriving constantly, and my pleasure at seeing them is distracting me from writing down who bought what, and how much discount I promised them.

At the start I think it’s fine: only two people have bought things – I can remember that. But by the end of the evening it is eight pieces, my brain is wine-washed happy jelly, and I haven’t a clue. Also, there is cash in my pocket, and I can’t remember who gave it to me or for what. And trying to remember is further hampered by four of us going out for sushi after the show.

On Sunday most things are solved as people come to collect their purchases. As they are friends, they know I’m a fuzzwit anyway, so there’s no loss of face. Joe comes at the end of the day to help me pack the show down, make the space nice for the next show, and try to Jenga what is left into Stinky, my Fiat Panda, along with all my art materials, and clothes, and shit.

Joe’s approach to any job is ‘time is of the essence’. So, I unpack the gorilla glue as drawing-pins ping off Bittersweet under the not-so-careful hands of my screwdriver-brandishing son. ‘Joe, this is art, not flat-pack furniture from Ikea,’ I yell, more than once, as he speed-wraps stuff in bubble wrap, then turns is over and bangs the sellotape into place.

And that’s it. It’s over. Seven weeks in a studio and a solo exhibition. New friends, reconnections with old friends. Happy memories and sad ones. An awesome experience on every level. I can’t quite believe I’m leaving this life and going back to the old one. All I know is I’ll be forever grateful for this time.

And then a most beautiful thing happens – I get a voicemail from my cousin, Dawn. She came to the Private View and bought the little blue piece made from sword-shaped cocktail sticks, entitled Even on the Darkest Night the Stars Still Shine. Dawnie is a sweetheart, works as a therapist, and is one of the lightest and gentlest souls I know. Sometimes she writes slam poetry, but being too humble to recognise her talent, she just calls them ‘raw words’. She wrote one after coming to the show, and has given me permission to share it with you.

Deeply moved, I pause and take a moment. In my talk to the associates I remember saying how I’d been unable to blog about the grief. That I’d sat down many times, but never been able to find the right words. And that I’d tried to use this time to see if there was a way to express it visually instead.

I realise I’d thought about the process of creating it, the challenges of taking on the residency, and how the results would form part of my personal journey…

but…

I’d forgotten that art can speak to others too. That one of its functions is to evoke and challenge, to invite dialogue, and stir emotion. And somehow my work has done exactly that. Somehow, through all the pots of paint, the plastic knives, and pins, I’ve connected with others.

And, as I drive Stinky back home, I can feel Steve beaming down with pride.

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