Marian was born in Burnley to a hard working family.
Her mother, a tailoress from a long line of painters. Her father, son of a miner, went into the cotton mills at the age of 14. He eventually became a fireman. A polymath, he turned his skilful hand to many things including judo, cycling, photography and carpentry which had an indelible influence on the young Marian who would regularly help him in the workshop.
A conscientious objector during the war, her father spoke German fluently and went on a tandem cycling holiday of Germany with his eldest daughter just after the war, bearing witness to the fall out of war firsthand. Marian recalls the life-changing experience of sitting in a cinema at the tender age of seven watching footage of the atrocities of war. The images of streams of refugees, children clutching teddy bears were forever written into her heart.
At 14, Marian was accepted into the Ballet Rambert School and went to live in London’s Notting Hill. She arrived into the swinging 60s London scene just following the race riots, when she set up home in a hostel off Portobello Road attending night school in Hammersmith.
Her days were spent at the ballet school, training under the tyrannical Marie Rambert who famously used the ‘what doesn’t break them, makes them stronger’ technique – if you didn’t come back fighting you were let go. At the age of 18 she was accepted into the Rambert Ballet Company with whom she toured extensively. At 16, she met Christopher Bruce a fellow ballet student, a James Dean to her young Bardot – a loving and creative partnership ensued in which both family and creative endeavors flourished. Her first theatre design was for ‘Rooster’ the Rolling Stones work choreographed by Christopher Bruce.
By the age of 40 whilst completing her MA Marian found her artistic voice in the carpentry workshop, making printing blocks – she discovered that she needed to use her hands.
She realised that her early formative years shadowing her father in hardware shops and in his workshop had been more inspiring than she had given them credit for.
In the last 10 years using a needle and thread has also come into play, her artistic sensibilities so influenced by her early years with her mother and father. She says in the studio is the only place where she can say exactly what she wants, although, when working, it’s an interesting process of silence where little happens in the brain and the real expression is in the material.
A polymath much like her father, Marian has turned her hand to many skills over the years often all at the same time – dancer, yoga teacher, print maker, set and costume designer, sculptor, mother and not forgetting curator. For a number of years she ran the Parlour Gallery on Paul Street here in Frome.
A year in the making, her latest artistic offering is a poignant and heart-wrenching body of work dealing with the current refugee situation. Such is the impact of this fearless, unapologetic piece that having viewed the work my tears appeared unbidden and I left feeling bereft and pensive.
‘No-one’, ‘Nobody’, ‘Forgotten’ – these are the words used when discussing her latest work. She describes the current Refugee situation as ‘unthinkable’ which might explain the exorcism which has created this work.
For a year she has been obsessively binding, she says its not a form of constraint though, its more about keeping safe. This challenging body of work can be described as fearless, much like the seven year-old child who set forth into the world, fighting her own battles with blood, sweat and tears to get to this place where at last her purest voice can be heard.
Go to Marian’s website www.marianbruce.co.uk
