Ann Bellamy: Just Be Normal. Memoirs of a Dissenting Child

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Have you ever wondered what creates an artist? Ann Bellamy invites you into her formative childhood.  A world full of spinster aunts, best clothes, coal tar soap and the acute human observations for which she is increasingly well known. With reference to her sister’s diaries, family artefacts and her memories, we learn that Ann was a highly visual child whose individual choices often set her apart from her more conventional peers.  Just Be Normal will strike a chord with many of us who as children imagined the ordinary into the extraordinary and secretly harboured the delights of a mysterious world full of beauty, ridiculousness and pathos.  If ever there was a testament to a child’s artistic potential then ‘Just Be Normal’ is it. The dissenting child is a brave child, an inspired child and, in this instance, a child who had no choice but to become an artist full of humanity, empathy and a wicked sense of humour.