I think about Phyllida Barlow all the time. I came to London in 2001 to do an MA at the Slade school of art, finishing in 2003, a year before Phyllida did the show at the Baltic Gateshead that finally turned the art world’s head her way and three years before she retired from teaching to ever-increasing fame.
Phyllida’s was the kind of late-onset fairytale fame that truly does spur a grifter on, with its whisper of “it could be me” – but for me, anyway, that’s not why every single new break she got after leaving the Slade was such a thrill. And it wasn’t because I knew her, and had been taught by her. I cheered because she was so special. She knew how to listen and how to really, truly see. And she cared, so very deeply, about art and the people trying to make it.
