Art & Soul are saddened to have learned of the passing of artist and Art & Soul member Lucy Bradley. Lucy joined Art & Soul through the Maddison Centre in Teddington and was a regular contributor to Art & Soul exhibitions. In 2020, during lockdown, she joined the online group 'Remote Connectivity' led by Ursula Kelly and connected with Art & Soul through our Zoom group.
Below, we are honoured to share a tribute to Lucy, written by her close family.
"Lucy Bradley’s family are writing this tribute whilst treasuring many precious memories and thoughts of our sister and daughter, Lucy who passed away in December 2022.
For Lucy, listening to music and doing her designs created a strong, comforting and happy place. We have been amazed at seeing the huge range of her individually unique and carefully finished patterns. Looking at these is very moving for us, as they clearly show her ability for finding colours, shading, endless detail; there are many large scale designs completed with beginning and ending in her own great style.
Lucy had a great sense of humour and care for other people, we can imagine her doing the designs and thinking of the people she cared about, as well as her feeling good about her place in the world.
It is quite humbling in fact, that Lucy would see all the colours working well together, that she so carefully graded colours once she had worked out a pattern which she liked. Sometimes the detail of shading and the work gone into each design original was lost in the busy moments of receiving cards she made of her designs to give to us, for our birthdays or for family celebrations!
We wish she was around to share the moment of this June 2023 Art & Soul exhibition but very much appreciate the work of Art & Soul, through the Madison Centre where Lucy attended - particularly reaching out to Lucy through the online Art classes. During lockdown Lucy showed us her art work, as she drew what was in front of her or what she saw through the window, art classes were a positive connecting moment.
Just before lockdown, Lucy went through a process of being assessed for autism, which is now being more widely recognised but when Lucy was a little girl was just not mentioned. She coped incredibly well when growing up despite challenges and enjoyed time with art at the same school in Edinburgh as her younger sister. She loved her family and this diagnosis, received when she was in her early 50’s made sense to Lucy.
She said ‘It feels like the bricks in the wall are coming down’. It made sense of her anxiety, social anxiety and also needing routine. Above all, she valued people she knew through the various support she received and her dear friends, she really cared about people she met!
Isn’t it amazing that art and her pattern making is such a beautiful expression of this? And that it is recognised through the work of a wonderful charity, Art & Soul.
Thank you, Kathleen (Lucy’s mother), Elizabeth, Charlotte and Richard."
Art & Soul's upcoming exhibition, 'Flourishing Together', will be dedicated to Lucy Bradley's memory.
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