Karen Densham Interview

Moira Vincentelli interviewing Karen Densham

M.V.Karen tell me a bit about yourself, how did you first start when you were at school, what interested you in art.

K.D.I think I've always been interested in art. I've always made things as a childI think I used to constantly. I liked art. I used to be obsessed with horses. I was completely googah, you know. Boys are completely googah about football. I was googah about horses and I even used to like going to the dentist because I could then go through magazines and pick out pictures of horses and take them home and draw them. I used to enter competitions to win a horse, but I never won one, but I had  friend who was sort of 'nouveau riche' and had ponies. So I made friends with her and I also looked after the local donkey. I always used to draw my donkey, so I was really kind of into drawing. It was also recognised that I was good at art when I was about five. And teachers said to my mum and dad she's good at art you must encourage her, buy her educational toys which will encourage this talent. So I used to get spiromatic, spirograph colouring books etc.. We never had plain paper in our house so I used to use the reverse of the colouring books and do my drawings of horses, portraits or whatever. It’s like kind of living in the Third World I suppose. You know I used to use the back or inside of cereal boxes or whatever I could draw on. I was creative in the sense that I would be resourceful you know. Not saying we were completely poor I mean I had toys and everything. I used to like making things and used to make apartments for my dolls, creative in that sense.

M.V. Arrange your desk you said ?

K.D. Oh yeah I remember I used to order the inside of my desk, at school. For the first day I would make, a kind of mousetrap, where you would flick a ruler and one of the tobacco tins would open and inside would be beautifully arranged rubbers pencils whatever. It would only stay tidy and function for the first day or so because it used to, get too chaotic, and too many things would get put in there I used to really enjoy kind of ordering it and making devices for things to open. My teacher, I remember him saying to me ‘Oh she'd make a good designer’ and I didn't even understand what a designer was or anything. I never did art at school it was only after I left school and did a foundation that I started to do art and then I failed my A-level which I thought I was quite proud of.

M.V. Did you do any other A-levels actually ?

K.D. Art history which, I passed that, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. I knew what I didn't want to do. I didn't want to work in an office, and I didn't know anything about art education. I didn't know it was possible to do a degree in it and I didn't know if I was qualified and I just kind of drifted into it. I kind of fell through the net because I remember on my A-level you either, it was like a two year foundation. First year you do your A-levels. Second year you either do a vocational course in graphic design or you do this kind of arty thing called foundation course. Which I did because I was useless at graphic design. I wasn't neat enough. So I did this other thing and then not realising at the end of the two years you would go on to do a degree. I suddenly found, “I'm gonna do a degree. What does that mean?” you know and I didn't have any conception of it because no one in my locality, no one from my school ever went on to do things like that. So it was all really exciting.