Ana Maria Cockerill: Connections between Artistic Practice and Therapy
30 Oct, 2013
Read in English below / Leia em Português aqui
By Manoela dos Anjos Afonso
Translation by Harriet Batey
Series “Circulating Voices”
Artist and Art Psychotherapist, Ana Maria Cockerill arrived in London at the end of the 1980s. Nowadays, she is part of the group of members and artists of Espacio Gallery, where as well as exhibiting her own work, she has also taken on curatorial projects and organized group shows with …. and established artists . Contrasts, which took place from 17th to 22nd October 2013, was the most recent exhibition she organised, bringing together 20 artists and including pieces produced through various media including painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography, video and installations.
Ana Cockerill has lived through many experiences, which are today reflected in her career choices, being both an artist and practicing as a psychotherapist. She was born in Minas Gerais; however it was during her upbringing in Salvador, capital of Bahia, that she started developing her interest in the arts.
From a young age, Ana’s only wish was to work within artistic production, but due to the sector’s economic insecurity, she began to look for routes which would provide some stability without completely discarding the arts.
Ana Cockerill next to her work entitled “The Ideal (red) Chair” in the Contrasts exhibition at Espacio Gallery,London, 2013.
Furthermore, she was the only one of 14 siblings to choose the arts, with the others choosing courses such as medicine or law. This made her hesitate and worry about her future. But Ana was determined. Even before her 18th birthday, she began at the Federal University of Bahia’s School for Fine Arts. Later, she started to work within restoration as she was fascinated by the artist Michelangelo, having a romantic view towards such work along with historic and dilapidated buildings. Following this path, Ana secured a job at the Instituto do Patrimônio Artístico e Cultural da Bahia – IPAC, where she worked on restoration projects within the Historic Centre of Salvador, at the Pelourinho Churches, in the Cathedral and also at the School of Medicine.
Later, whilst still at IPAC, Ana was in charge of the conservation and restoration project of an important ceiling of the Solar Ferrão , in Pelourinho, which was composed by “ 17th Century paintings covered by four layers of repainting” according to the artist. Within this work, Ana led and trained a team of almost 25 people, many of whom belonged to the local community. For her, this was one of the most fruitful periods of the restoration of Salvador’s Historic Centre, as once Benito Sarno took on the directorship of IPAC, groups were formed not only to restore the fronts of historic buildings, but also to include and educate local residents, including prostitutes and drug addicts.
Continuing her education, Ana Cockerill undertook an MA in Restoration and Conservation offered by the Federal University of Bahia, a course in partnership with UNESCO, and subsequently completed an MA in Textiles Conservation in Portugal. On returning to Brazil, she presented the results of her research, but after six months resigned to follow love as her partner (who is British) asked her to marry him. She accepted and moved to London. Despite having to leave her job, family and the city of Salvador, Ana says that a sense of adventure added to the decision. “I was crazy about London! So, obviously I loved the idea despite all the suffering at having to be separated from many things and people so special in my life. ”
Upon arriving in London, Ana worked, amongst other things, in a small antique restoration office in North Acton. After living here for around a year, she got a job for three years at Hampton Court Palace. As a result of her artistic training and experience with restoration, she was contracted by the Royal Collection to become part of the conservation and restoration team for seven famous tapestries belonging to the Queen, damaged in a fire a few years previously. “… this series was called ‘Acts of the Apostles’ and was made after cartoons created by Raphael, which are in permanent exhibition in the V&A Museum. My tapestry was ‘The Miracle of the Fishes’… I was its project manager, it was enormous! I remember this one time, entering the stand and hiding behind the tapestry, crying… it wasn’t what I wanted to do, I wanted to create art.”
. “Um passarinho me contou” (“A Little Bird Told Me”). Sculpture, 2013.
Despite being an important part of her career, Ana says she doesn’t miss this time: “Hampton Court was the most important palace for Henry VIII, it is full of history and beauty, a postcard image by the side of the Thames, swans, masked balls, picnics in the park amongst an unspoilt environment, the Queen’s view…I met the Queen at the opening as I was one of the restorers… but I felt exhausted and bored; I went home and it was like clockwork… it was 1000 times worse than IPAC… it was not what I wanted to do… and then I felt strongly all the power of a cultural chock. In Bahia, we sang while working – Brazilians are another story: people sing, joke around, during lunch or when we finished work we’d have a beer in one of the bars in Pelourinho , there was all that bohemian atmosphere … At Hampton Court, it was just like this: I had to have a ‘silent’ break for ‘high tea’ every day. It seemed like an eternal déjà vu! I said ‘My God!’, and went back to work the next day and it was the same, so tiring… To feel ‘more alive’ , at that time I decided to start to introduce my colleagues in the conservation department to Brazilian music and began including the Bossa Nova and Tropicalismo tapes, which I had brought with me into our daily routine. But despite my discontent and feelings of longing, I noticed that I had become more optimistic: I worked for the British Government, but there wasn’t as much hierarchy as you saw in Brazil at that time. Here, everyone was included in the tea rota, including the head of the department… the Palace director came to work by bicycle…”
When her contract at Hampton Court Palace finished, Ana applied for a stone restoration job at the British Museum: “Sadly I didn’t get the job. I was interviewed but my English was terrible! I was competing against some really talented people .. and I, with my broken English… The one thing I remember is they asked me about the biggest conservation and restoration problems I faced in Salvador. I replied: termites and money, because most of our materials had to be imported, including laboratory equipment, which was expensive and, for the most part, operators had to be trained in Europe.”
Close to turning 40, Ana Cockerill took a new direction in her life: she had a daughter called Joanna, started to move away from restoration and became involved in other types of work . “At this point, I was very excited with the possibility of working with people from various countries in London and decided to get involved in community arts projects … I decided alsso to undertake a foundation course in art therapy preparing myself to go to back to the university ”.
Towards the end of 1990, Ana was already working on projects such as NAZ Brasil, Arts For Freedom (an independent project created to support refugee children living in London hostels), as well as starting an arts department at one of the Brazilian schools in Baker Street. After almost 5 years working within these communities, and with her daughter reaching 6 years old, the artist undertook a qualification in Art Therapy, as this had been a long-term dream. “I always considered studying a course combining art and psychoanalysis. I chose Art Therapy because for many years, since being in Brazil in the 1980s, I had looked into it and found the power of art as a communicative vehicle and linguistic symbol fascinating”.
“This morning I woke up thinking of you”. Installation, 2013
And so she started a master’s study in Art Psychotherapy at Goldsmiths and worked as an Art Psychotherapist in the Acute Psychiatric Ward of Ealing Hospital and also in a school in Mitcham. “During that time, I was really stretched: the course, writing, supervision sessions and personal therapy… constant self-analysis… being a mother and consolidating all of this within a ‘timetable’. Well, they were three difficult years, but finally I finished and was registered to HPC-UK. However, then the recession came along, it makes you take concessions and do jobs which you don’t like. Art Therapy is really well respected, both here and in other countries where the profession is registered. But sadly, many art therapists abandoned art. I present myself as both an Artist and an Art Psychotherapist. It’s a fight which I face all the time: I remain strong, but I don’t stop making art. In essence, to be an art therapist and an artist are interrelated activities”.
Ana Cockerill is charting a course linked to artistic creation, yet built this through experiences of historic and fine art restoration, alongside artistically based community work and practicing Art Psychotherapy. Currently, as well as producing her own artistic pieces, which include paintings, installations, and sculptures, Ana also sees patients privately.
As an artist and art psychotherapist, Ana Cockerill says: “All of my art work contains symbolic and metaphoric elements that express the influence of my studies and clinical practice. It is fundamental for my professional practice as an art therapist that I continue being a working artist, principally because art is the main part and vehicle for communication and reflection in Art Psychotherapy. My art work for me is very significant and subjective and doesn’t discount what I learnt from studying psychotherapy; it can be linked to psychoanalytical concepts and my clinical experience”.
