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> > Deborah Caulfield

I'm an inconsistent artist, hugely distracted by life. I create in a variety of media including words, pictures, food and laundry. I do it because I can't seem to not. Sometimes it's fun.

Disabled people are not worth the minimum wage. How could I forget?
29 October 2014

Blog

A self portrait of the author with two fingers

A woman’s blog is never done My last posting was a catalogue of horrors, a list of the ways in which the past four years have not been a good time to be a disabled person. Will 2015’s general election bring forth a kinder and more just government? One can only hope. I'm no optimist, yet I heard myself tell a disabled person with learning difficulties today that things can only get better... In my last blog I forgot to mention David Freud, the man in charge of benefit reform....

Comments: 0

What artists do all day: Scribble while the world burns.
27 October 2014

Blog

Page from my journal 10 October 2014

I was growing accustomed to feeling OK about myself, after nearly a lifetime of self-hate, all-purpose anger and general internal mayhem. At last, maybe I CAN be a proper artist, I was thinking. But look what I'm up against: Goodbye social welfare In May 2010 with the arrival of the coalition government, the future for disabled people began to look bleak. The recent past (since 1995) felt like the good old days; the Disability Discrimination Act a fart in the wind. Bit by bit the entire...

Comments: 5

If you're disabled, smile! You're on television.
10 October 2014

Blog

Self portrait of the artist.

BBC Three is casting for actors for a new laughter-filled fantasy entertainment series featuring a couple of young disabled parents. As in real life, the characters are lovely, full of fun, and in complete denial. They watch too much television. Life is but a dream. As a full-time paid-up member of the disability rights movement, I've known and knocked around with hundreds of disabled people, not all of whom would subscribe to that label, which isn't the issue, here. Ask me about that...

Comments: 3

A poem for National Poetry Day 2014: Fragmented conversation reconstructed.
2 October 2014

Blog

Black and white abstract image.

Fragmented conversation reconstructed   They are not the problem. He died alone, a monologue. Joke.   Your proximity matters. Surrounded by statues, so close. Redeemed.   Our distance fills the spaces. Creeps up, screaming. Inside.   Words under lines. A statement, misguided. Disguised.   National Poetry Day 2nd October 2014...

Comments: 1