In 2004, I was allowed to explore the derelict upper floor of Sherborne house, some of the school rooms of the former Lord Digby school. As an Air Force child I had always felt nomadic, so the opportunity to touch stair-posts, chairs and desks used by my mother as a schoolgirl brought a welcome sense of identity - as well as an urgent need to record a special building that seem to be decaying in front of our eyes!

To document these emotions, I took moulds of architectural and left-behind details: a pencil sharpener, a sampler, a pile of French verb books, carved panels, a coat-peg number, door locks, and a huge box of old keys. With the resulting thinly-rolled casts I made translucent porcelain labels, which transformed the mundane items into an evocative inventory of activity and learning, memory and loss.

I also made hundreds of small casts which I wanted to suspend from a high ceiling. With a lucky observation on a camping trip I discovered that, like a guy rope, simple holes made at right angles would hold the porcelain pieces firmly in place- to rise triumphantly out of an old Digby School desk.

For the celebratory exhibition and launch of ‘The Sherborne’ in May ‘24 I am remaking all the pieces from old Sherborne house moulds and to the suspended piece I am adding references to the newly-restored Thornhill mural: Diana‘s moon, oak leaves and angel feathers.