It's all about performance, said Karen.

Maris who had offered to very kindly to assist (to support my practice and for the privilege of the opportunity,arrived with a hugely heavy tiny trolley suitcase full of stuff. She was later to say that the day with me was the highlight of her week.  As she organised herself into the exhibition layout, I kept eyeing up her case, but it was only later in the day after being really busy that I asked her what she had inside. Lots, she said, I didn't know what I might need. What do you want me to do, she asked, when there was a lull in footfall, and, as requested, proceeded to wrap me in lengths of cream calico from my material stock and take photographs. As I sit on friend Karen's tiny chair in front of the RWA antique and very precious golden frame, another Karen arrives. She takes in the space, the result of weeks and weeks of planning, organising and juggling curatorial concerns, a process to which she had supported.  And, like Eleanor who had kindly supported my performative practice by photographing my response to environs during the trip to Italy, takes up her camera and documents the scene. Aha, I think, at last, stillness, a quiet moment. With the pondered what-shall-I-do-with-this-cloth-book featuring rage girl arranged beautifully on my head as a magnificent hat, I sit rather gingerly on the ancient chair and blink. Maris darts to her textile filled suitcase, she whips out in a flash a bundle of colourful feathers, I hold them delicately in my hand, noticing visitors are coming in the gallery and not minding a jot. I feel serious about having to care for the feathers,chair and antique frame, whilst being photographed.  

Why do I keep dressing up?

Next day, I projected the large scale photographic series of me dressed up, instead of previously shown series of environs from my Italy journey. Before public opening, a lovely gentle guy comes in to offer to hoover, he stops to ask if this was the Fashion & Design Dept? Sort of, said Julie. Do people wear these things in Britain,he says, gazing up at me larger than life. Hmm, I said.  Well, he says, in Nigeria, my home, this would be the dress of a King's wife, and then Julie went on to tell him she had royal Nigerian blood in her family line which I never knew. Maybe it is all about the performance after all.