It’s near impossible to highlight one memory of Dora House. Its distinct facade and steps are really a portal to echoes of remembered and re-remembered conversations about sculpture. At once serious, purposeful, celebratory, but often equally humour infused, about the challenges and tribulations about what it is to be a sculptor. It’s the past people and the new people then, like the traditional bricks and mortar and the recent renovations, that brings it all together. Dora surely leans in proudly too, to the ongoing, goings on.
I’ve been to Dora House so many times over the years, for different events, including being interviewed a fair few times for different opportunities in the old basement by the great and good. As if the old basement wasn’t terrifying enough! Having said that, because of this, I was incredibly fortunate to exhibit at Dora House, what was the culmination of a three-month bronze casting residency in Italy. This was overseen then by Helaine Blumenfeld, a genuinely life changing experience.
I’ve been a trustee too, which was during times of great change so it’s a real privilege, especially now seeing many of those seeds start to fully bloom. The rigour as well as the down to earth approach of all those trustees and staff then and now really gets stuff done. You know who you are!
It’s fantastic to continue to meet new staff and members as well as established ones, often at a get together, often making way to the steps at Dora House, which like the greatly renovated building are ever so much nicer now. Long live Dora House.
Ahead of the Year of the Home in 2026 when we celebrate the Society's 50 years at Dora House, we asked members to share with us their personal memories of Dora House. We will be sharing them throughout 2026 as part of a programme of this milestone, marked also by the delivery of our project Creating a Home for Sculptors. If you have a memory you would like to share, you can still do so via this link.
