Conversations with Nancy Willis

“As long as there is any movement in my body, I will find a way to make art.” – Nancy Willis, November 2024

In advance of Nancy Willis’ exhibition in the side chapel at St James’ for Disability History Month, I visited her home studio. The following article is compiled from conversations we had then, as well as a previous interview I conducted with Nancy back in March 2024.

Nancy Willis, a disabled artist based in London, is a vibrant voice within the contemporary disability arts scene who has been active in the field since the late 1970s through her involvement with the Disability Arts Movement (DAM). The DAM played a pivotal role in the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act in 1995. Nancy’s belief in making art accessible to all shines through her own artwork which is continuously evolving, partly in response to the degenerative nature of her disabling condition, muscular dystrophy. At the core of her work lies a profound personal narrative which seeks to reclaim agency over her own voice in opposition to projected views of disability from non-disabled mainstream media. As she articulates, “In my work, I try to find ways to speak about my disability and my life. Many of the images we see of disability are imposed upon us from outside – the able-bodied view of disability. I try to find my own voice. My work invites the viewer into an inner world which juggles realities with dreams, losses with hopes and possibilities.”

The pieces exhibited in St James’ side chapel for Disability History Month bring attention to disabled motherhood, loss, and spirituality. Although Nancy describes her beliefs as agnostic, she was raised attending church, and the biblical stories from her childhood often emerge in her artworks as she reflects on her experience of life as a disabled woman. The large clear glass windows of the church inspired her to create the stained-glass piece With One Touch Her Spirit Soared. She reflected that “as I’m less able to run around, my spirit runs for me and my spirit soars.” She has curated the space to invite quiet contemplation and ensure that the chapel was not just walls to put work on, but rather that the pieces looked as if they belonged there. It is both mine and Nancy’s hope that the chapel space can be a place for visitors to pause in the Presence of God from the bustle of the city outside and breathe, allowing their souls to soar too with one touch of the Spirit.

The conversations between Nancy and I were a beautiful experience of living, breathing crip time, much in the same way that prayer and contemplation in churches and exhibition spaces can also embody (for those unfamiliar with the concept, see a definition here: What is Crip Time?). Our time together was characterised by giving one another time to think and consider our words with grace, outside of linear, fast-paced expectations of how conversations ‘should’ be carried out. We inhabited a space of stillness and comfort with rest integrated as a core part, providing space for medications and the slower movements of our bodies and mobility aids. In one of these pauses, Nancy commented on the importance of the mundane in crip spaces. As disabled people often have no choice but to rest and spend more time in their houses or rooms, the mundane objects and arrangement of visual stimulation can have a far deeper importance. Much of Nancy’s more recent artwork reflects this in its subject matter. She condenses her artistic vision into small, deliberate movements which require enormous amounts of effort. Because of this physical ordeal of mark-making, each of her works, I believe, is deeply personal and imbued with intention. Nancy’s condition has progressed much further since the creation of the artworks on display at St James’, however, she remarked that “as long as there is any movement in my body, I will find a way to make art.”

Nancy Willis’ artworks on display guide us towards this pause in time. Throughout all the works on display, there lies an undercurrent of grief and loss. They each exist out of a recognisable time and space within Willis’ mindscape of her innermost thoughts and emotions, causing a dislocation and dissociation from reality. Key to understanding the lost babies in Spirit Baby and Cow-Angel is Nancy’s personal experience with losing a baby and struggling against doctors’ highly stigmatised view of disabled motherhood. Even while these artworks do not directly reference Nancy’s disability, it is not far beneath the surface, overlapping her threefold identities as a woman, disabled person, and mother. It is also important to understand that these artworks were created years after the event as she worked her mind around these complexities, providing an intimate window into the societal consequences of stigmatisation. These artworks can therefore allow for contemplation on the ongoing struggle for basic rights for disabled people. We can do this by adopting a position of restfulness and expectancy, just like those who awaited Christ’s arrival, taking the time to grieve, inwardly heal, and then move with action into a brighter future. It was these depictions of disabled femininity that first drew me to Nancy’s work. These simple moments of holding silence for whatever is burdening our hearts is strangely intimate. When asked to describe what was going through her mind when creating each of the artworks, Nancy struggled as the artworks were made precisely to pinpoint what could not be uttered in words, but only heard in silence. Finding Nancy’s art was the first time I, as a young disabled woman, saw what true representation and reclamation of our narratives can look like when we are so often infantilised and desexualised by society. I am constantly humbled by her grace and capacity to hold space pregnant with an understanding of the unspoken.

Rest and silence can be a radical act in our current age where there doesn’t seem time to come up for air. Our minds and screens are filled with images of war, destruction from climate change, political upheaval, the list goes on. While it is vital we educate ourselves on these current affairs, it is important we do not forget to sit in the stillness and listen for God’s guiding voice. Within my own spiritual practice, I find that silence and waiting can be some of the hardest things to do amidst various commitments, yet it is when I take a moment to allow myself to listen inwardly that I can find clarity. Operating in crip time is often not a choice, living in a body with chronic illness. However, instead of pulling against it, I will try to carry Nancy’s lessons in conversation with me throughout my spiritual and personal life as a radical act of acceptance, in resistance to the hurtling speed of able-bodied time.

As we approach the advent season, I encourage everyone visiting the church or attending services to take this slower approach of crip time and intentionality with them. While the streets of Piccadilly outside the church are packed with Christmas shoppers and the list of events seem never-ending, I hope that this side chapel can be a space to reflect and breathe deeply in patient yet deliberate anticipation of the birth of Christ. Christ’s ministry was one of radical inclusion, where He sought to find those forgotten in the margins of our society. As a church, we should strive to follow in His example, meeting the fundamental needs of people with action. If we want all members of our church and community to flourish, we must address those barriers which prevent true inclusion. UK Disability History Month is an opportunity to seek out our shared histories and politics in order to aid the continued struggle for disability rights in the UK and abroad. There is a list of resources on the website with a variety of books, websites, and webinars if you would like to find out more. I would like to end with Nancy’s words: “In this long life of trying to pull art out of myself, [I hope] that something will make a mark and has found a place. I pray that it is part of change. Change comes so, so slowly. If there’s a weighing scale, I want to be on the part of the weighing scale that tried to put something towards justice and liberation. […] I’ll be a part of that debate until the very end.”