Drawings for Anne Naylor

Anne Naylor was a 13-year old orphan who was beaten to death by her milliner employer in London in 1758. Anne's boss, Sarah Metyard, along with Metyard's daughter Sally, repeatedly tortured Anne who was a sick child and poor worker. Eventually Anne passed away, however, the Metyards kept up the pretense that she was still alive, so not to scare the other girls, whilst keeping her body in a trunk. The smell of the corpse became too much to bear, so the Metyards chopped up Anne's body and disposed of it in a drain in Farringdon on Christmas Day in 1758. Ten years later, unable to keep their secret, the Metyards were found out; they were hung at Tyburn. Anne's ghost, the "Screaming Spectre of Farringdon", supposedly still haunts the train station of the same name. These are the drawings that I'm working on for a silk about Anne, or "Nanny" as she was known.

Janet Hodgson (the Enfield Poltergeist)

Silk, paint, burn holes, 140 x 140cm

Janet Hodgson gained notoriety in 1977 in what became known as the case of the Enfield Poltergeist. Eleven-years old at the time she claimed that she was possessed by the spirit of the deceased, foul-tempered former resident of their north London semi. The Hodgson family reported furniture moving through the air, objects flying towards witnesses and incidences of Janet levitating above her bed. The case drew nationwide interest, making the front page of the papers. The Hodgson's neighbours started a campaign to force the family off the estate.

Lately I have been thinking about the similarities between what we think of ghosts and what we think of as art. To name a few, both are representations, both invoke moral panic and both provide very subjective experiences. I have always thought of my silks as a little ghostly, how they move when caught by a draft. Will blog soon of more findings.