Happy 42nd birthday to English artist Alison Lapper (pictured at right), born on this date in 1965.
She's perhaps best known as the subject of the Marc Quinn statue, "Alison Lapper Pregnant," a larger-than-life marble which has stood on Trafalgar Square's "Fourth Plinth" since 2005. This month, it's scheduled to be taken down, and replaced with another work of public art (so those of us who never got to London to see it are out of luck). The statue was featured on Ouch! podcast #4--how do you feature a statue on an audio program? I'll say only that a megaphone was possibly involved.
There's an edited excerpt from Lapper's autobiography, My Life in My Hands (Simon and Schuster 2005), online here, concentrating on her childhood in a residential hospital, and her young adult years, seeking independence, education, a career, love, the usual stuff.
