Mary Watts – Her Travels, Her Studies, Her Works
It was her work in terracotta that established Mary’s involvement with the Home Arts and Industries Association. In 1884, an undisclosed friend of the artist persuaded Mary to hold clay modelling classes, twice a week, at a ‘boys’ club’ in Whitechapel. The purpose, Mary recalled, was to give the boys, who were ‘chiefly shoeblacks, an interesting hour or two’ and to show them ‘the pleasure of making something in their leisure time’.