Clare

Clare is an artist and poet.

Her wife Sandra died in 2021.

“I love working in the community and creating spaces for people tell their story through art. I’ve worked with people in diverse communities, in prisons, in mental health services.

We had an exhibition in the Tate and I said to them, there’s no difference between your artwork and the other artwork hanging in here. The only difference is in how we’re viewed by society.

In lots of ways, the art world is just another institution - we like to think of it as free and bohemian, but it’s got its own hierarchies and privileges. I’m glad I’ve defined my own boundaries.

I’ve always been about making my own party - not waiting for someone else to invite me to theirs.

“That’s the thing with creative projects: they have a life of their own.”

When she was ill, writing gave us both a voice to say it like it was. No romanticising things, no ‘Cancer can be a gift’ and all those clichés.

People tend to think you have a diagnosis and a few years later you slip off into the sunset. But in reality, it was three years of appointments and scans and trauma. Three years of losing things every day.

You don’t always have to find a positive spin. Sometimes you just need to feel what you feel and express that.

Putting all of this out there, parts of me are scared.

Sandra’s death broke me open, made me fearless. But three years on, life creeps back in - admin and mortgages and things - and I feel more wobbly.

And even though I’ve got gorgeous people on my side, there’s still part of me that wonders if they’re thinking “here she goes again…!”

In a more trusting place, though, I know that it opens a door for others to connect and share their stories too.

We’re the carriers of the story. So many people have tales to tell but they wouldn’t know how to get them out in the world. If we know how to share them, that’s a privilege.

It’s how we live on.

I spent three years intensely caring for - holding - Sandra. And then she was gone.

I was lost, exhausted. But Sandra asked me to tell our story. To take all of this work and let it flow out into the world.

I just kept saying, ‘I don’t know where I’m going to live, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I know I have to do something with her artistic legacy.” It was something I could continue to do for her. I could care for our creativity and carry on. It felt like a gift.

I don’t know what’s next. I just know that after the show and the book, creativity and magic will carry me somewhere else.

Possibilities will open up. I trust that.

That’s the thing with creative projects: they have a life of their own. We might create them, but we can’t control where they take us.”