In My Own Words, BBC 1, BBC iPlayer, Alison Lapper, Director Poppy Goodheart

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0022vjc/in-my-own-words-series-1-alison-lapper

Alison Lapper: ‘The whole point about art is having something to say ‘I didn’t think art was about fitting in.’

Alison Lapper – an artist, a muse, a mother – explores her life through art and archive in this visually rich and emotionally intimate documentary as she emerges from the most difficult period of her life after the loss of her son Parys

My name is Ally Lapur. I’m an artist. That’s it.

It oozes out of me, my pores, my hair, my dress. When I’m painting.  I’m lost. Lost in this movement and feeling. It’s how I express myself.

There’s so much you think you remember.

I just want him back (Parys)

But all the doubting Thomases won. Cause he died.

I haven’t seen him for 4 years.(Dead) He’d be a month away from being 24. When he was in the world, I was a very different person.

Through this exhibition, I’m allowing myself to mourn. I’m trying to put together a body of new work, exploring  mental health and grief from a mother’s point of view.

Maybe I’m here to learn this lesson, but it’s a cruel lesson. You’d think being different was enough. But NO. Life has even more in store for you.

I was a love child. My mother had a breakdown. She was encouraged to go home and forget about me. I didn’t meet my mother until I was four- years old. I mean, it would have been wonderful to have a parent that loved me and wanted me around and thinks like that.

I was born in backward, 1965.

I was six-weeks old when I went to live at Chailey

 Heritage. And I remained until I was 17.  

https://www.chf.org.uk/

One of the policies was don’t pick the babies up. They don’t need a hug. I was born with limb deficiency. Not a thalidomide. I’m two years too young.

We were observed. What’s it doing?  What’s it capable of? A lot of the photos are medical photos. But you can still see my personality is starting to come out. I’m sticking my tongue out. And when we had sessions like that—twice a year, we were photographed, head to foot—or whatever, that was a time when you’d get one to one with somebody. (Personal care). Maybe an hour. Two hours. It was a nice time.

[cf Huts]

Experimental workshop with different children. I remember that.

I didn’t really need artificial legs. I didn’t need to be five-foot-one, but they thought I did. And by the time I was 23, I was out of them because they were a pain in the bum.

People say, ‘when did you want to be an artist?’

And I can probably say, ‘the age of three.’

I was always drawing with my feet. And to think of what I was drawing, families and pregnant woman. And I used to make up stories [angel’s Glasgow kiss] about what happened to these people.

I was probably drawing what I wanted but not even realising that’s what I wanted.

I won an art competition at school, when I was 16.  And my work went in the local papers. And somebody from the Mouth and Foot artists saw my work. They actually took me under their wing. I can remember people going, ‘She’s never going to be an artist’.

People tell you, you’re never going to live on your own. You’re never going to achieve this…You’re never going to do that. Cause in their eyes, they can’t see it. And I think that’s what gives me or gave me a lot of my drive.

I was always told I wouldn’t and I couldn’t and I shouldn’t. And I was like, I will. And I am.  And I’m going to.

You know when I first moved to London, I was out partying with my friends all the time. Learning to drive. Learning to do things for myself. And there is an ambitious Ally and that has come out stronger and stronger as I got older.

Imagine, 2005. The only one in her year to get a first-class degree in Fine Art.

I started to examine my own body when I was doing my degree. Looking at myself in a mirror and getting people to photograph myself. And that got me thinking, how can I be so grotesque, and I’ve got all these sculpture and photographs and they actually look really good.

If I could go back and live these three years again, I’d do it tomorrow. I had the best time. I started to look at my own body. Shape. How did that affect other people’s opinion? So how did it effect me?

Quite by accident, I got into the same position as the Venus de Milo. Then it began to dawn on me, the classical paintings, I actually fit. And it was really this whole relationship now, me being disabled to society, yet these pieces of artwork being amazing and beautiful.

One male tutor that could hardly bear to talk to me. His finest words were: ‘Well, you’ve got great tits’.  

I didn’t know whether to be insulted or quite chuffed. Then I thought, No, I’ll be chuffed.

[Watching archive footage] I was so happy. So happy. Nobody had ever told me that before. And, you know, today. Everybody would be up in arms about it…You can’t say that…

Well, actually, to me, that was a real compliment.

Cause he was going, like, ‘You’ve got nice tits.’

And I’m going, ‘Yeh, I know’.

And it’s only in the last five or six years I felt sexy. I had power over my own being.

So to actually have this freedom was incredible.

My art has really taken me through my life. And you know I’m a foot and mouth painting artist. That’s my bread and butter. Money, and what-have-you. Means I can live and pay the mortgage and everything else I do is a bonus really.

As an artist I do very much work with different ideas. Photography, painting, installation. It’s about feelings. Innit? Anything artistic is about emotions and feelings. Things I’m trying to express, something  through yourself. To other people. You know, when you’re artistic, you give an awful lot away, because you’re giving of yourself. You know my heart and soul goes into it.

‘Alison’s Baby’ 2000.

The whole reason for going on tv was to prove I could be a good mum to Parys. How sad was that? I stupidly thought I could pave the way for other parents with disabilities to say, look…? You can do this. It is your right. You have an absolute right to be a parent.  

Somebody who has been in my house has written a report that they feel there is a problem within our home. Paris, like any other three-and-a-half year old was being difficult. He pulled me over, which Parys has probably done in his lifetime, four times.

Alison and Parys (2004).

And, obviously this person thought, I’d no control over Parys. And that I’m a danger to him and he’s a danger to me. You know, when it this ever going to stop? You know, when are people finally going to trust me with Parys? When?

I was miffed. Rightly so. I remember that anger and frustration, of saying, ‘When is this ever going to end?’… It never did.

I realise that now.

Or ever will.

I will be questioned until the day I drop dead.

Why do I do it? My son died and I invite…It’s as if I have to prove my son died and it wasn’t my fault.

All we have left of the past, if we’re lucky enough, is objects. Memories. The reason I finally agreed to do the sculpture for Mark. Model for it. I kept thinking this is going to be around longer than I ever will be. It’s a  piece of history.

Imagine, BBC (2005)    

One’s immediate reaction is “Ugh”. And you’ve got to get through the “Ugh” factor.

‘If you have a Lapper on your wall, you’ve got to justify it, every day.’  

David Grob, Director, Eyestorm Gallery.

Oh, I could have smashed his face in. My career could have maybe have taken off. Then to say that on TV! …What the hell!

You’re supposed to be representing me. Why does it repulse people so much? Disability? What is it? Does  it frighten them? Are they scared?

Alison’s mother speaking in 2022.

Well, it was the biggest shock of our live. You know. There was only the midwife, cause I was having her at home. And she said, ‘Oh. I think I’ll get an ambulance.’

I said, ‘OK, why?’

She said, ‘Something doesn’t feel quite right.’

‘They wouldn’t let me see her. I think she went to a children’s home. Where? I haven’t go a clue.’

Interviewer: ‘Do you think you ever got over the shock?’

‘Of Alison?... No, and I don’t think you ever would…No. It was like a nightmare, really.’

Alison [later in life] I didn’t have any contact with her (mum) at all. Then a social worker came and said we’d like to bring her to see you?’

I said, well, you know I don’t really want to…Then I did in the end.’

Alison’s mum: ‘Then  it went on from there. We used to have her over for the holidays.’  

Pointing at a photo: ‘That’s Alison. That’s when we lived in a flat…That’s Christmas.’    

Another snapshot of Alison: ‘That poncho. They were all the go, then. There were no arms in it. So she was alright there.’

‘I didn’t ask for her to be born like that. I wish she hadn’t been. God forbid!’

Interviewer: ‘Do you think in hindsight, thinks would have been different had she been adopted?’

‘Well, yeh. Cause somebody would have loved her. Wouldn’t they?’

‘Obviously, she wasn’t getting that off me.’

Cut to: Alison watching her mum, onscreen.

‘Ouch!’

‘Out of the horse’s mouth.’

I know if she could have not had me, I wouldn’t be sitting here, chatting to you now. So, yeh, she didn’t love me. I mean, and that resonates. How am I supposed to…? Deal with that? She didn’t love me.

I think that all my life I’ve been seeking that love I never got.

I always knew I wanted to love Parys like she didn’t love me.

Child of Our Time, BBC, 2013.

I noticed when we’re out and about, a lot of people stop and stare. And he noticed it far more than me, now.

Documentary maker. Parys scores high on the neuroticism trait.

 Neuroticism, in psychology, refers to a personality trait characterized by emotional instability, anxiety, moodiness, and a higher tendency to experience negative emotions like fear, sadness, and anger.

Documentary filmmaker. ‘Alison has noticed his anxiety’.

Alison (then). ‘He (Parys) doesn’t have a very high self-esteem. Which I, stupidly, thought I could give him.

Alison (now). When I first agreed to do Child of Our Time, I didn’t realise, because I don’t think any of us did, that there’d be like, analysing the behaviour. What was that word they used—neuroticism?

I always thought he’d be as gobby and difficult and confident as I am. And you know, I remember thinking, Have I made his life harder?

Parys: ‘It’s great having a famous mum, but the downside is, I don’t have much privacy.’

Alison [then] There are people in mine and Parys’s life 24-7.

Parys: I just wanted to be with my mum.

Alison [then] I look at him and my baby is gone. The way he walks. The way he carries himself. As he grows, we change and our relationship changes. And definitely, he is stepping back.

Alison [now] I think he liked the idea of being a teenager and more in control of what was going on but also life got more complicated. Smoking. Dope. And all of that started to take over. And then start self-medicating. All those things you wish that they’d never do. He started to do. He stopped being the Parys I knew.

And I always thought he’d get better. Cause, I’d experience mental health myself. And I’d always managed to pull through.

And coming to terms with your children are not you.

Parys [then] I don’t feel like I’m an adult yet. I don’t feel like I’m a child. I feel like I’m in the middle…I need to go to college. Cause I need to get a photography degree…I might work for a paper or something…I might do what you do [media journalism]? Be filming people for shows and that. Sound like a nice cool, job…She’d [mum] would be happy and I’d be happy.

Alison [now] When Parys started having difficulties, I went and got help for him. He was a mess. Wasn’t with me, anymore.

In the last two years of his life, they moved him, what as it? Nineteen or twenty times? Half the places, I couldn’t even get in the front door. How was I supposed to see him and support him, if I couldn’t even get in the front door?

He couldn’t even get in the shower, cause he was so neurotic by this time. I remember him saying to me,

‘Mum, I can’t get into the shower, cause it just closes in on me.’

And it didn’t matter how much I told him I loved him. Or how much I was proud of him. All the things that a mother said like that… to her child doesn’t make an ounce of difference. I was phoning him and he wasn’t picking up. Apparently, he came in very drunk. I don’t know what he’d taken. He’d taken something. Whoever was with him at the time said to him, “C’mon, Parys, you need to get some sleep.”

The verdict came back that it was Accidental Death.

I don’t think he wanted to die. I don’t know. I wasn’t in his head…Did he want to? Was it all too much? … I can’t talk about this.

I can’t talk about it.

Putting the exhibition up. Especially putting his clothes out. That was like going to see him in the morgue. Like saying ‘Goodbye’ all over again.

Why on earth would I put myself through that?

For a while, I guess, it brought him back. It brought him close, again. I felt like he was almost willing me on. And maybe because I am an artist and recreating that whole journey of his mental health and his death…It was like the last thing I could do for him. It’s like his death is so pointless. What else could I do?

I can create. One more time. Create Parys. And I wanted him to know what it was like to be completely and utterly loved by your mum.  

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