‘Waiting for the Seventh Wave’, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham and Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield. (1987)

In 2008, my husband Chris Wainwright had been invited to sail on the Disko Bay Expedition, West Greenland, with Cape Farewell. It was the first time he would travel without me and the sense of his immanent absence, and the impending fear of being left behind, was deeply significant both personally and artistically, the pen marking my waiting time like the pendulum of a clock – tick, tock. The sense of waiting brought to mind the artwork I made over forty years ago entitled ‘Waiting for the Seventh Wave’ (1987) symbolising a metaphoric voyage.

Waiting for the Seventh Wave was the final exhibition of the Henry Moore Fellowship. I was the first woman ‘fellow’ and contextualised my practice more specifically within a women’s tradition of making. Waiting for the Seventh Wave was one of a series of patchwork quilts made using a range of traditional sculptural materials.