Photo: Admiration by Alison Lapper

"I went from being a cute kid who people would throw money at or pat on the head - even though I hate that - to a stroppy teenager who nobody thought was cute any more. That whole 'You don't miss what you haven't got' theory is a total lie. Of course you do. I'm surrounded by able-bodied people, I go to the bank and I can't see over the counter, I see other people doing things that I can't - of course I miss it, because I know just what it is that I don't have." She has slipped into the present tense - but, no, she says firmly, that was a blip in the past: "No, no. That went on only for six months. I don't think like that at all any more." How, as a teenager, did she manage to keep these thoughts at bay, thoughts that plague all teenagers whether they are able-bodied or not? "Because I realised there wasn't anything I could do about it. I could never look like that, 6ft and anorexic. There was no point in thinking about it. I'm one of those people who likes to embrace life, I couldn't sit around and just think about all that. I don't think like that at all any more. How many other women can say that?" At one point, she says, "I thought my character would make up for my body," and her character certainly is defiantly forthright; this stridency has remained, but "when you're 3ft 11in, you have to be loud". She only painted "beautiful bodies" until she started her art degree when she was 26 at Brighton University. Her art teacher there told her this was because she never looked at herself, which made her "bloody cross", but she realised her teacher was right. Since then, she has not stopped looking and all of her art (she paints with her mouth and everything else is done through collaborations) has focused on her disability.

Photo: Angel by Alison Lapper

"I'm not going to pretend I'm not handicapped," she says firmly. "I am going to focus on my body until people change their attitudes." Yet, surely that risks reducing her to her disability, and making her a generic figurehead? "Well, my art is not just about the disability," she says. "It's about how I feel about my body, how I feel as a mother. I'm not a crusader, it just seems to have turned out that way. But I am Alison, first and foremost." Doesn't she worry, perhaps even resent, that her disability is being turned into a commodity? After all, Quinn only asked her to pose for him because she is disabled, not because she is Alison. "It's not resentment, exactly. But, see, I was doing similar kinds of art, but I knew I wouldn't have been able to afford to do something as grand as this. So would it have been a different story if I'd done it? Would it have gone on to the fourth plinth? I don't know. But I have never worried about being seen as a generic disabled person." If some have questioned Quinn's motives, Lapper could face a similar charge. She says at one point that the minor furore over the statue's selection has been "cool - I'm an artist [so] the more publicity the better. Hopefully people will take me seriously after this."

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