Alfreda McHale, who has died aged 76, became a professional artist relatively late in life, following a career as an NHS nurse and midwife. Her art, primarily installations that both demonstrated and critiqued the role of the domestic in the artistic, were exhibited in a wide variety of venues, outside and indoors.
The scale of her installations varied widely: from kitchen shelves in Seeking Pearls (first shown in 2008 at the NEC Birmingham and three other venues as part of the Knitting & Stitching Show) containing glass jars filled with brilliantly shiny buttons, to exhibitions dedicated to her mother’s knitting skills, held at a local school in Leamington Spa and elsewhere, under such titles as Knitting Matters and Have You Seen My Knitting?
Moving outdoors, Trolley, in the grounds of the National Trust house Charlecote Park in Warwickshire, was a sculpture of tea trolleys – “found objects” collected over a 12-month period from charity and recycling shops. In Runcible – also at Charlecote – large numbers of metal cutlery bloomed in flowerbeds, an unlikely but impressive addition to the gardens’ floral displays.
The refusal to separate the domestic from the artistic or the literal from the imaginary were hallmarks of her home as well as her work. Entering the terrace house she shared with her husband and fellow artist Pat McHale, whom she married in 1986, was to be struck by the magnificence of their artworks and to experience the warm welcome in the delicious aroma of her baking and the sight of hand-embroidered bed linen awaiting a weary traveller. Their “blended” family included Alfreda’s three sons from a former marriage and Pat’s two children.
Alfreda was born and raised in east London, one of eight siblings. Her father, Daniel Goodrich, was the headteacher of a local Catholic primary school, her Irish mother, Rose (nee Noone), a state registered nurse.
She left school St Paul’s Catholic secondary school at 16, training first as a dental nurse and, after moving to Leamington Spa in 1971, retraining then practising as a midwife for 20 years. I came to know her then, when she delivered my first son at the town’s Warneford hospital, together with his stillborn twin, in 1975. The experience bonded us and we became close friends thereafter.
In 1985 Alfreda went on to obtain a first class honours BA, followed by an MA in fine art from the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (now Birmingham City University), after which she enjoyed a successful career as an artist, participating in more than 30 exhibitions.
Until motor neurone disease impeded travel, Alfreda made trips to view the work of the classical artists she and Pat most admired, across and beyond Europe. In addition, they shared a devotion to Ireland – they had a holiday home in County Galway, where they intended to retire – and their Roman Catholic faith.
Alfreda is survived by Pat, her three sons, Daniel, Henry and William, from her first marriage, to Simon Britton, which ended in divorce, her stepchildren, Michelle and Anthony, and nine grandchildren and step-grandchildren.
