Madeline Norris (She/her)
Instagram: bymeeni & madeline_norris_illustration
Bearwood
Artist biography
Madeline Norris. b.1969. Lives in Bearwood, Sandwell, West Midlands
Graduated University of Birmingham in 1997, with a BA Joint Honours in Dance and The History of Art.
Received a MA in Design Management in 2000 from Birmingham City University, for the research undertaken for Living Proof, a project exploring the potential of galleries as locales for innovative arts education.
She has worked as a facilitator on a number of community arts and participatory projects including Musical Moonbeams, Birmingham City Council 2007 - 2010, Colour Me Purple, Creative Aging, Coutyard Hereford 2016 - 2018, MotherShip PLAYgroup 2018 - 2020, Fantastic Journeys Fantastic Folk 2022.
Exhibitions and commissions include Stockport Designer Crafts Show November 2012- January 2013, Boutique Designer Craft Show, Staircase House November 2013 - January 2014, Connected Messages Midlands Arts Centre April 2017, Wild Lives Forest School logo and identity designs 2020, Forge Mill Farm illustration and interpretation design 2022, Fantastic Journeys props for Calendula’s Cloak 2023, Fantastic Journeys props for Suns and Moons 2024.
About the artwork
Mother May - headdress and cape
This costume was created for ‘Hedge Morris’ dancing on May Day (1st May). Madeline wanted to perform her dance as a character and so set about thinking who this might be. Many May Day characters symbolise fertility and purity but she wanted something that could represent a different aspect of the season, something for those of us who aren’t fertile or child bearing so she created ‘Mother May’. They are a personification of ‘mothering’, nurture and care. She was also thinking of these traits in relation to May Day being the Workers Day and care for workers.
* Hedge Morris created by Lucy Wright ‘Hedge Morris dancing is morris that is renegade and solitary, or undertaken in an informal group. It’s for those of us who don't have, or can't be with a group of morris siblings but still feel the call to dance and celebrate the passing of the year.’