Everybody has a story. In her kitchen over mint tea, sweetened with honey from the bees living at the end of her garden, Sara Mclaughlin discusses the Islington places that inspire her art. Interview by Nicola Baird & photos by Kimi Gill taken before the Covid-19 lockdown
Artist Sara Mclaughlin – see her work on Instagram – uses one of the children’s old bedrooms as a studio at the top of the house. “We’ve got three grown up children, the youngest is living in Paris. She’s left all her stuff here but has a minimalist apartment!” © Kimi Gill for Islington Faces
“I’d always done art in my spare time,” explains Sara Mclaughlin who has spent decades working in education and is still willing to help people learn art studio skills. “My father was an artist, and my brother and sister went to art school. Now I’m an artist: I’ve been making up for lost time since I’ve had more freedom.”
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Sara Mclaughlin’s lockdown project, the Covid Diaries: bike mania. Monotype (c) SM
Q: Does the lockdown remind you of anything?
Covid-19 doesn’t remind me of anything as it is something quite beyond my experience. But it does make life different and not only in a bad way. My recent drawings, which I’ve called Covid Diaries, are are result of a lot of looking. I’ve been out and about watching what people do, their shapes and sizes and how they interact – in the park, queuing for shops, exercising. You don’t usually see so much bonded behaviour in normal times as people are so busy rushing about. Lockdown has given some families and couples a chance to spend lots of time together. Although I realise that for some this hasn’t been easy.
Artist Sara Mclaughlin: “I specialise in drawing, print making and painting. I focus on wildlife and particularly city wildlife. I’m interested in the manmade environment and the way it interacts with nature.” © Kimi Gill for Islington Faces
“When I reduced my hours at Islington, I did a City Lit fine art course, at Holborn, over two years, which is similar to a foundation course. I met a lot of like-minded people and we got a group together exhibiting and sharing practice. At the moment I specialise in drawing, print making and painting. I focus on wildlife and particularly city wildlife. I’m interested in the manmade environment and the way it interacts with nature. So, I like decaying factories, pylons and how nettles and weeds encroach on them,” she says. Just a week earlier Sara had offered to give Islington Faces a lino-cut lesson in her home in Stoke Newington where she’s lived with her husband, Sean, for around 23 years. But before that home was Islington.
Sara grew up in Coventry but after taking English & American studies at UEA in Norwich she moved to London. “The first place was a squat on St Thomas’ Road as friends were here already. It was fun living here, but the house was in a state, even the banisters were damp, there was a hole in the wall. One of our party was a lawyer who used to sleep in the bath and then get up and dressed in posh clothes and go to court,” she says recalling the cheap – and sometimes free – housing market of the early 1980s. Jobs were plentiful too.
“Loads of friends were working at Manpower Services in Holborn, stuffing envelopes,” she says. In fact, that’s where she met Sean when “he was the new temp”, who she subsequently married at Finsbury Town Hall, in 1986, after they’d had two of their three children. By then Sean was working in Islington’s housing department.
Sara Mclaughlin has had dogs for years and a passion for making art. It’s a family trait: her daughter Rosanna Mclaughlin, has just had a book, Double Tracking: studies in duplicity, which is about the art world published with a launch at the Tate. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Double-Tracking-Rosanna-McLaughlin/dp/0995705224 (c) Kimi Gill for Islington Faces
“We used to live at 15 College Cross when it was Islington Community Housing. It was lovely. Six people were living in this huge whole house. I had two children there. Then we had to move out because there was dry rot next door, and it was in the news that a baby had died from dry rot treatment. We moved to a council flat in Barnes Court in Lofting Road. It was up 72 steps with no lift, a bit tricky with a dog, two children and a pushchair. It was nice there and we had lovely neighbours, but the flat was very small. We didn’t really fit into it and moved to Hackney in the mid ‘90s,” explains Sara. That new house is where she and Sean still live. The kids may have grown up, but a canine companion remains a constant – by the radiator under the kitchen table there’s a whippet sleeping, and another in the living room.
From Sara Mclaughlin’s studio. (c) Kimi Gill for Islington Faces
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Places Sara Mclaughlin likes in Islington
- Handweavers Studio, 140 Seven Sisters Road where I’ve been going one day a week for 10 weeks to learn handweaving. The first session was all about how much warp was needed for a 3ft sampler – 470m, which then need to be wound around the pegs. Quite a brainteaser. Handweavers Studio is so enthusiastic and encouraging. They sell all the things you need and run classes upstairs in the most unlikely of venues. There’s an Italian coffee shop nearby, Girasole, 150 Seven Sisters Road, N7 where I took away a vegan focaccia for lunch. Read the Islington Faces interview with Girasole manager, Eglal Gomaa
- The Phoenix Pottery 199 Caledonian Road (info tel: 07535 370286), which I’ve been going to for years. It was started in City & Islington, Finsbury Park but Madeleine who runs it had to a Herculean task to get all the equipment moved to the new premises which is much smaller, but a lot of us followed her. She takes everybody from beginners to really confident. I make mugs, bowls, utilitarian things. All the pots on the top shelf of my kitchen, and when I can sell at craft fares. See the Islington Faces interview with potter Madeleine Ladell.
- We’ve been going to the Duchess of Kent, 441 Liverpool Road, N1 every month for 20 years, me and my book group. We’ve just read Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks and are about to read Drag your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, a Polish writer. We usually spend the first hour either talking about the book or books we’ve read and enjoyed. We drink all the way through – though I didn’t this month because dry January. We all used to work in Islington education service, but only one is still working at a school in Islington.
- I always used to go to Highbury Fields with the dog. It’s very small but I did like it – I also often went to Barnard Park with the children.
- I sometimes go to the Taproom on 163 Upper Street for the Islington Arts Society. It’s a group of artists that exhibit twice a year and have art in the park, which is a sketching group that anyone can come to, you don’t have to be a member. We can’t usually exhibit in Islington because it’s so expensive, so we have tried Stoke Newington Library Hall and Hornsey Library.
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Work by Sara Mclaughlin. (c) Kimi Gill for Islington Faces
Sara worked at Ambler primary school, Blackstock Road, as the English as an additional language specialist (EAL) in the 1980s and ‘90s when there was a big influx of Bangladeshi families who were put up in B&B hotels along Seven Sisters Road. “We also had people from all over the world, lot of African and Chinese children. I worked alongside teachers to help develop classroom strategies for working with new arrivals who had no or little English and also to encourage the community to participate a bit more in the school, especially mums who were a bit isolated,” she explains. “This developed into a strategy so when I became a consultant for the Education Department in Islington we worked on inclusion. Before this schools were segregating the new children but teaching English before you get into the classroom doesn’t work, the children learn alongside each other.”
Another key change introduced by Sara was helping the teachers to understand the linguistic demands of the curriculum – what sort of language do we use when teaching? Maths can cause confusion because there are a lot of words that have double meaning, for example ‘table’, ‘odd’ and ‘even’. Geography might include mathematical language such as percentages, population, ratio. While with history you might be thinking a lot about the past tense, so even English first-language speakers need to understand this,” says Sara. “What was powerful was getting parents to understand how we teach, and involved in their children’s education. We invited parents in to see how we educate in the UK because it’s different. Some parents, especially Turkish and Bangladeshi mums, were surprised that we didn’t use corporal punishment or rote learning. We also taught families how to read with their children – so you predict what’s going to come next before you turn the page, and you talk about the pictures.”
Work by Sara Mclaughlin (c) Kimi Gill for Islington Faces
It’s clear Sara is still passionate about inclusive education. She also still loves to teach and has plans to do more. “I’ve been giving art lessons to friends. I really enjoy encouraging people to make stuff! The teacher in me is still there, but I’m trying not to be didactic. And it’s nice to work alongside people. I’m thinking of making another of the rooms in the house into a work space so we could have maybe four or five people at once.” Islington Faces has already been lucky enough to be shown by Sara how to lino cut – she’s super patient and encouraging. Plus, Sara’s artwork, which you can find on her website and Instagram, are inspiringly beautiful.
Sara often decamps to Suffolk and during June 2020 and has often joined the Suffolk Open Studios event. She’s also a regular at the Islington Arts Society exhibitions, the first of which is due to be held from 20 April until 4 May 2020 at Stoke Newington Library Hall. See you there.
- Instagram @mclaughlin_sara
- Facebook.com/Sara.mclaughlin.758
- Website: https://saramclaughlin.artweb.com where you can admire Sara’s paintings, drawings and prints on sale for between
£30-£500
Over to you
If you’d like to nominate someone to be interviewed who grew up, lives or works in Islington, or suggest yourself, please let me know, via nicolabaird dot green at gmail dot com. A special thank you to Sara for helping me to learn how to make lino cuts and then print them up. If you enjoyed this post you might like to look at the A-Z index, or search by interviewee’s roles or Meet Islingtonians to find friends, neighbours and inspiration. Thanks for stopping by. Nicola
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Jane: She looks delightful… I love that twinkle in her eye
