After a frenzy of activity ‘Vanessa’ took her first steps into the daylight. She only just made it to her first date.

Five days before, and with only half her head assembled, I committed to taking her on our first outing to the MA Fine Art Digital Pop Up Show. This took place on 25 November, the end of my first term at UAL, Camberwell.

Until the show ‘Vanessa’ was barely out of my sight. My sole obsession became laser cutting, sequencing a jigsaw of 244 cut pieces, and gluing them together in the right order. My hands were a mess. After several mishaps – spilled glue in my study, knocked over tea, amputation to re-glue her legs the right way round, she was finally ready to go out into the World.

My wife’s light hearted response to each mishap was”you were never very good at DIY were you?” – but she was very impressed with the finished sculpture. The reaction of the real Vanessa, the life model for this work,  was “Wow!!!”. I was happy, but what would my colleagues think of it?

On the morning of the show I drove to Camberwell with ‘Vanessa’ sprawled across the back seat of my car. A one metre tall sculpture in solid MDF is very heavy – and I was sure that the amputated leg I had glued back on the night before would fall off before she arrived at Peckham Road. I was relieved that she made it in one piece and laid her down very gently on the display table. Here are some photos. I hope you like them.

Vanessa helping assemble the sculpture of her

‘Vanessa’ is now on top of the  bookcase in my study and my ‘first MA’ is complete!*

(*referring to Jonathan Kearney’s reaction to my study proposal – Terry you have 5 MA’s there!!)