I'm Gemma and I live on the Fontaine Road, full of lovely, creative, like-minded people.
I work in plumbing because I quite enjoy the job and I like the freedom that it gives me
and I like working my hands and solving problems and things like that.
And I like going into people's homes, I've always really liked interior design to be honest.
I've always loved it and then I've always wanted to do sculpture and art.
I guess it's good for me in both ways because I get to create a piece of art
and I get to practice my trade as well and in all different strange angles which is always the life plumber.
I did a little bit of work on the Olympics, like a little work experience placement.
I wanted to go into actual construction work and it was really good.
All the guys on site were really friendly and really helpful and I've never had a single problem with it.
I've always had really good response from my clients and I've really had a bad response so that's good.
I think in general they like having me because I can talk to them.
Having a female is different and they take more care and more time over it.
Maybe sometimes I'm a bit more expensive than the local guy but they talk to me
and if they feel like they want me in their house, they have to feel comfortable with me.
That's probably why I became a plumber as well because I knew I wanted to work with metal.
I've always wanted to work with metal.
I've worked with a lot of metal being a plumber and when I was studying we did lead roofing
and I really, really, really enjoyed that.
That was really good.
I think I just like the traditional skills.
All of what I do, all of my processes take a long time.
I never find that I'm like I do a quick art piece.
It always takes several layers of processing to get to where it ends up which is annoying
but you get quite a sense of achievement when it's done.
I got involved in the women in construction development that was going on for the Olympic stadium.
I met this lady who was really, really enthusiastic about women getting construction training.
She was really helpful in getting us onto courses.
There was like a whole group of girls onto courses so that we could be qualified to use the equipment
that you get on building sites.
I think that the Olympics has definitely helped a lot of girls, well some girls.
It worked well for me, I did get offered a job in it but I just didn't think that I'd be able to do it.
I did this plumbing because I wanted to have time to make art, to have time to be free
and not be judged by 20 days holiday.
If I would have worked at the Olympic site on the job that they were asking me for
I wouldn't have learnt a lot of skills that I'd need for domestic plumbing firstly
because they are completely different and I found that out.
I don't think I would have moved forward with my knowledge of plumbing assistance
which is what I really need to do before I can move onto gas
so that's why I didn't take the job.
I don't want to work 12 hours a day and not learn loads and loads.
I guess I was always an artist or a designer, I started my life as a designer
and quickly found that I'm far too messy to be a designer.
I'd always wanted to work in plumbing for some reason.
I want to learn more about the environmental side of it
and energy saving, water saving and things like that because they're quite important to me.
It's supposed to form like a tree shape and what's really cool is that your eye can follow it
all around the whole sculpture to find where it roots from
which is how I find trees to be and I find them quite inspirational for things like this.
I find nature in itself quite inspirational, especially when I'm working with foreign materials.
It's nice.
It wasn't that I wasn't happy with being on the construction site.
I think I needed more time to sort of have my time to create
and I value that more than I value the colour of money, I guess.
The art is just what I want to do, it's just who I am
so I think that you either close that side of your life down
or you accept it and then everything else works around it.
I don't ever want to be in a job where I'm like, yeah, I could have done that.
I'd rather just do this and hope for the best.
