Virginia's talk started with how we can change at any time of life, whether we have to or whether we want to, what change means to us, how embracing change can help us as women, our capacity to adapt to change and we remembered the menopause as having been called ‘the change’.
Her story started in 1979, finishing her A levels, interest in art set aside. Sent out to get a job, she got a Saturday job in luxury fashion. Asked what she wanted to do she replied, “Run this place one day”. So the boss said to start work and he’d teach her everything he knew. In 1981, she project managed the launch of the first Ralph Lauren store in Europe. When Joan Burstein bought the first Alexander McQueen collection, Virginia got to visit his studio and watch him sculpting cloth onto a form. She stayed for 20 years, through Browns met Robin Guild, who worked on interiors and saw how an architect could change the use of a pair of buildings from vertical to horizontal.
In 2000, the person she had fallen in love with and had been separated from died, at 46. This made her think: she went back to her community, worked in a coffee shop and given a camera, decided to learn how to use it. We discussed our own big life changes.
Virginia went back to work as a freelancer for the next 20 years, with smaller, mostly creative businesses and some teaching work.
In 2020, the pandemic hit and work stopped. In 2021, approaching 60, she thought about what to do. There was a thread of connection – of creativity, arts administration and people. With savings to support her, she was able to volunteer. Turned down for a curation role at St Margaret’s House, the job became hers when the successful applicant didn’t stay. She also found training to become a life coach at ACC (Associate Certified Coach), offering free coaching to practice her skills, and made short films with a friend.
With her first exhibition to curate, Virginia got chatting with Molly at the café, an artist working with net from the fruit and turning it into garments. So she framed them. Virginia learned by doing, about open calls, meeting people, exhibition layout, installation, and building her network. St Margaret’s House was very supportive, enabling Virginia to grow into the space and figure it out.
The purpose of the café exhibitions is to offer opportunities for local artists who haven’t shown before to work towards something. Space is free, with suggested commission of 20% on sales, and the support of the curator.
With a lot more people posting work online during the pandemic, Virginia learned how to make recordings of shows. People’s relationship with Victoria Park prompted an open call. She enjoyed the atmosphere, free of the egos involved in fashion work.
Exhibiting was a chance to see and be seen. School students’ saw their work on show from a women’s history project with Oxford House. Virginia worked with Women on the Edge, who had formed a collective in lockdown to keep themselves sane. She worked on a heritage project about boxer Daniel Mendoza.
The volunteer role came to an end, though an idea for a Summer exhibition turned into a one day a week job to develop the programme. She developed the standard private view format with ‘in conversation’ evenings.
Meanwhile, Virginia reconnected with her own creativity. Inspired by Robert Mapplethorpe’s black backgrounds, the light in Flemish painting, the beauty of flowers as they decay, the Japanese concept of wabisabi (beauty in imperfection and transience) and our perceptions of beauty and age in women, she made a series of photographs with an improvised indoor setup lit with her iPhone and printed on Hahnemühle Photorag paper for its dense, soft matt look, with no glass, no border and antique-style frames.
Members suggested other work with this feel to look at – Anya Gallaccio’s gerberas, Sam Taylor-Wood, Helen Chadwick and Anselm Kiefer.
Joining a group doing photo walks at night, Virginia took pictures of nature and roads in artificial light. Through St Margaret’s, she documented the garden over a year. There is a permanent display of her pictures in the corridor between the café and the garden and she has started to submit work to other shows.
Virginia quoted the definition of artist as “doing something with intention”. We talked about how we feel that we have to be one thing when necessity or interest might involve several things; and about the change in young people’s expectations, unable to buy flats and joining the gig economy to pay the rent.
Change has taken Virginia on a fantastic journey, thinking of herself as an artist using photography. “It’s like a flower that has blossomed”. In the latest change, Virginia decided to move away from St Margaret’s and sign up for a one-year painting course.
We heard about Brenda’s beading workshops at the Create Place, the illuminated manuscript class Annie had joined and Virginia talked about being excited and scared at the same time in taking on new things.
Virginia invited us to stay curious, be courageous and make one small change.
A big thank you to Virginia Orr for an inspiring talk.
Words by Lydia and Hannah; photos by Lydia
Our monthly coffee and catch-up: Friday 27th February, meet between 10.30 and 11.00 am at the Gallery Cafe, St Margaret’s House
The Gallery Café offers vegan food, locally-ground coffees and sweet treats. It has a rolling programme of exhibitions and an award-winning garden. This month’s exhibition is Fruit Machine – Andrew Lumsden, art and activism 1972-2022.
