‘The little luggage tag belonged to a First World War soldier’ Throughout 18th-and 19th-century London, mudlarks scavenged the banks of the Thames in search of things to sell.
Thankfully, the days of Londoners eking out a living like that are gone, but modern-day mudlarks still walk the shores of the Thames at low tide, looking for interesting objects – and one of them, Nicola White, turns her finds into exquisite works of art.
Nicola grew up near St Ives, Cornwall, and – inspired by local artists like Alfred Wallis, who painted on found objects – she would collect driftwood, sea glass and other debris from the beaches.
‘But when I moved up to London for work, around 1999, I missed the sea, so I gravitated towards the river,’ she explains.…
