£500.00
Sue Cathcart’s piece depicts Red Riding Hood in full red cape and embroidered dress with a picnic basket. She is shown armed to the teeth and brandishing a machine gun, in her basket are explosives and on her back a loaded rifle.
Sue says: ‘Thinking about the title ‘Pathways‘, I kept being reminded of the story of Red Riding Hood and her mother’s dire and gloomy warnings about not wandering off the Pathway on her way to Grandma’s house. Choosing to try and make a living in the arts is going off the accepted career Pathways, I was dissuaded from going to Art College because my parents felt it wouldn’t lead to a proper job and how right they were. There are all sorts of different challenges, people won’t take you seriously, you will get knocked back time and again, you will often be paid very little or nothing for your time and your work will be undervalued. You will need skills, a particular set of skills, accountancy, marketing, social media, sales, IT, advertising and massive amounts of energy. However armed with resilience and determination and a good bit of self belief it is much better to go down a different pathway that feels right for you and there will always be other places from there to explore.
‘If Red Riding Hood had tooled up she would never have been eaten by the wolf! She’d have been in charge of the forest, been more Robin Hood and righted wrongs for the woodland folk and squirrels. So the message of this piece is choose your own pathway, know that it won’t be easy but equip yourself with the skills to survive and thrive and……….don’t mess about with wolves! (and look after granny).’
Red Riding Hood dimensions: 30cms x 30cms
Medium: Papier Mache, found objects, textile, embroidery
Sue Cathcart has been working in mixed media for 30 years; she works primarily with paper, particularly papier mache and makes collages and 3D pieces. Sue is a self taught practitioner, and would call herself a Folk or Outsider Artist and produces work under the umbrella of the Mr Papers Corporation. Her work is very colourful and ebullient with diverse and found materials combining with the written word to create pieces that tell or are the story.
