Su Richardson

Bear it in Mind 1976 is one of four life-sized crocheted soft sculptures created by Su Richardson in the late 1970s. The work comprises a pair of dungarees over a pair of denim jeans on a coat hanger, and a pair of gloves hanging down on either side, in addition to found objects as well as appliqued and crocheted elements. The found objects include kitchen utensils, a whistle, a watch, pliers and scouring pads, while the crocheted elements include clothes and sausages. The clothes hanger that the textile elements are suspended from is an integral part of the work and is used to suspend it from a wall or ceiling.

With directness and humour the sculpture references the challenges of being a single parent and what they must ‘bear in mind’ while looking after a child and managing their own life and career; hence the inclusion of object relating to food for nourishment, tools for repair and watches to keep track of time. Hanging from the work are paper tags that say ‘lists, lists, lists’ and ‘don’t forget’, referring to the never-ending list of tasks a parent is required to complete. On the right-hand pocket of the dungarees is an applique handprint, an allusion to the ever-present child that requires the artist’s help.

Richardson, who studied at Newcastle College of Art and Design and Leeds College of Art before moving to Birmingham in 1970, has described her working-class background as being particularly important to her practice, which is based on lived experience and ‘domestic’ skills rather than an academic knowledge or use of traditional sculptural material. She largely works with textile and found objects and is best-known for her crocheted and needlework objects that subvert the ‘traditional’ expectations of women, drawing on her own experience as a wife and later as a single mother. Her work focuses on the female body, motherhood, domestic life, sex and relationships. Like many artists of her generation, Richardson was unable to sustain a professional practice in an environment that was hostile to women artists, particularly those with caring responsibilities. She moved into administrative work in the 1990s, returning to artmaking on retirement.

In the 1970s and 1980s Richardson was deeply involved in feminist politics in the United Kingdom. She was a key member of the Women’s Postal Event, also known as Feministo, a collective of women who sent each other small artworks through the post that was founded by Kate Walker and Sally Gallop in 1975. Bear it in Mind was made for inclusion in Fenix (1978–80), a collaborative, touring exhibition project that grew out of the Women’s Postal Art Event, which Richardson organised with Walker and Monica Ross. Richardson was also the founder of a communal house in Birmingham from which she and artist friends, including Ross and Suzy Varty, ran cooperative childcare organisations and a printing press. Together they founded and published at least two feminist publications including the Birmingham Women’s Liberation Newsletter and the single-issue zine MAMA. Bear it in Mind was subsequently included in Lucy Lippard’s influential exhibition Issues at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, in 1979, which included such artists as Jenny Holzer, Mary Kelly, Margaret Harrison, Alexis Hunter, Adrian Piper and Martha Rosler.

Linsey Young
September 2021

Further Reading
Alexandra M. Kokoli, The Feminist Uncanny, London 2010.
Su Richardson, Woman Up!, podcast episode 7, Desperate Artwives, 31 July 2019, https://www.desperateartwives.co.uk/woman-up-podcast-episode-7-su-richardson/, accessed 20 September 2021.
Alexandra M. Kokoli, ‘Burnt Breakfast’ and Other Works by Su Richardson, exhibition leaflet, Constance Howard Gallery, Deptford Town Hall, London 2012, https://www.academia.edu/1861381/Burnt_Breakfast_and_Other_Works_by_Su_Richardson_exhibition_leaflet_, accessed 20 September 2021.