‘Bring on the dancing bears’

The idea for this exhibition began whilst I was making sketches from the collection at Edinburgh’s Museum of Childhood. The collection there is wonderful and I was particularly interested in the old circus toys and how they would have reflected the reality of circus at that time. It reminded me of a fantastic and nostalgic circus show I had seen the summer before run by Nell and Toti Gifford – a truly amazing, artistic and funny show set in a very intimate ‘Big Top’. The world they create is like stepping into an enchanting fairytale and is an intensely emotional and uplifting experience and is both moving and at times delightfully silly. The Giffords very kindly allowed me to use the circus to sketch from and this helped inspire many of the images in this exhibition.