Grayson Perry is all manned up – bestubbled, brute of a laugh, verging on the laddish. On a wall in his spanking new north London studio, there is a comforting sight: a framed picture of Perry as Claire, his alter ego, clean-shaven, in a Little Bo Peep dress and matching bonnet. Phew! I thought I’d come to the wrong place.

The Turner prize-winning potter and tapestry-maker, curator, writer and presenter is working on the final stages of a new TV series on identity. It’s not a new subject for him, though: in one way or another, Perry has spent most of his life exploring the subject. He has chosen a number of people to sit for him, and is turning their portraits into a series of pots, tapestries, statues and maps. The idea is that they represent modern Britain, and most have undergone a radical change – so there is the jailbird politician (Chris Huhne), the Muslim convert, the transgender man, the fella who’s famous for being famous and, of course, Perry himself.

He is hush-hush about how the portraits will turn out, partly because he hasn’t finished them and partly because he wants to save the big reveal for TV and an accompanying exhibition. But he shows me his own self-portrait. It’s a beautiful piece of draughtsmanship, intricately drawn, like a psycho-geographer’s board game, and looks nothing like the man himself. Words and expressions squitter about at all angles, some seemingly random, some clearly personal, the conscious and subconscious making merry in a work he’s calling Map Of Days. The map starts with Sad Puberty, My Ultimate Dream, Lingering Doubt, before segueing into Casual Sexist, Internet Porn, Neophilia, Alpha Masculinity, Anecdotage. There are a few bluffs thrown in: is he a casual sexist? No, it was just something he heard on the radio.

A detail from Grayson Perry’s A Map Of Days, 2013 (etching). Photograph: Courtesy of the artist/Paragon Press and Victoria Miro London © Grayson Perry

What’s at the heart of his self-portrait? He directs me to the dead, empty centre. “If you look in the middle, there is no heart. There’s a tiny figure kicking a can along the road. It says, ‘A sense of self.’” He laughs. “It’s fairly bleak. There is no self.” Has he been surprised by anything the project showed him about himself? “Well, I’ve had a lot of therapy, so there are not many booby traps.” His wife, Philippa, is a psychotherapist. Has she ever analysed him? “No, of course not. You can’t get it from your wife,” he says, slightly impatiently.

There is a hint of self-mockery when Perry uses the word “identity”; he’d rather show himself and others in all their glorious contradictions than reduced to the literal. “It seems so amorphous, it’s like grabbing smoke. Different bits of us come out at different times.” And he is aware that it is his own multiple identities that give him currency as a public figure. “I tick so many boxes. That’s why I get a lot of gigs – because I can do the lectures, I can do the television thing, and I dress up, and by the way, I’m an artist as well.”

When Perry won the Turner prize in 2003, he was in his early 40s and had been working as an artist for a good two decades. He was reasonably well known in the art world, but pretty anonymous outside it. It was hard to say at the time what got the most attention: that a transvestite had won the Turner, or that a ceramicist had – who thought a contemporary artist would be feted for his pots?

Perry, dressed as Claire, accepting the Turner Prize in 2003. Photograph: Andy Paradise/Rex

In the early days, Perry was defiantly uncommercial, making sculptures and short films, often featuring himself as Claire, seen by few and bought by none. He was also involved with an avant-garde group, the Neo-Naturists (started by his then girlfriend, Jennifer Binnie), who would paint their bodies and exhibit themselves at nightclubs and galleries. (There is a striking image of a twentysomething Perry, body-painted to the nines, with a bell and bow dangling from his penis.)

Then he went to night school, started to make pots and discovered he was good at it. He was heralded as a great ironist: what could be more postmodern than taking a traditional, hidebound form and calling it modern art? “I had friends with a very particular sense of humour, and they’d say, ‘Grayson, you’re making pottery!’ And there were layers of horror, and then it was, ‘Aha, I see what you’re doing. Like, oh yeah, pottery!’ Pottery was what sandal-wearing, windchime-lovers did. Art is sensitive to areas of visual culture that haven’t yet been colonised by the art world, and perhaps what they sensed back then was, here was an area that hadn’t been fully explored.”

In another way, though, it made perfect sense: Claire, whom he has described as a cross between Camilla Parker Bowles and Katie Boyle, seemed just the type of woman who might produce pots at evening class. And Perry was, of course, subverting the form: however wholesome they looked, the pots illustrated scenes of child abduction, sadomasochism, masturbating teddies, sweet little girls with penises hanging from their dresses. Through his work, he explored the issues that had bewildered and fascinated him since childhood: who was he? Where did he belong?

He was born in Essex to working-class parents. He says his father, an engineer, was a weak and narrow-minded man. His mother suffered from mental illness, had a volcanic temper and was eternally disappointed. She was an aspirational woman (hence Grayson’s name, taken from a man she once met), who felt she had been destined for a bigger, better life. When Perry was four, she ran off with the milkman (this is why, he tells me, he has always hated cliches) and married him. His stepfather was violent and intolerant, a newsagent by day and an amateur wrestler by night. (He is no longer in touch with his mother.)

Like his mother, young Grayson was bright and mixed up. He wanted to be an officer in the armed forces and he also wanted to dress up in women’s clothes. He knew from the off that this was an unusual combination. At 10, he had not heard of transvestism and felt he must be a solitary freak. He asked his sister if he could borrow a dress and wore it in private. He didn’t talk about it with her or anybody else, but he knew he wasn’t gay and he knew he didn’t want to be a woman; he also knew it was part of his sexuality. He was outed only when his stepsister found his diary.

How did his family react? “Oooh, not well,” his voice rises to a squeak. “Classic horror, I think. I reacted badly to that as well. I was a big sulker. I closed down and told them I’d stopped. And I put a cap on it until I went to university.”

He recalls watching The Naked Civil Servant, Jack Gold’s classic film about Quentin Crisp, with his father. “They’d just found out about me being a tranny, and I think he was watching me watch it, to see if I was gay.” Did he assume he was? “Yes. In those days, if you dressed up in women’s clothes, people thought you were gay.” Did Perry put him right? “No, I was a pimply, incredibly nervous, anxious, shy 16-year-old. I’m not going to have an open, confident conversation about my sexuality with my father, whom I don’t really know that well.”

His lifelong exploration of identity has always been about more than the girl-boy thing, though. There was the working-class boy moving into a middle-class world and feeling alien to both (he once said he feels most relaxed with the aristocracy); the inhibited conservative who tells me that his wife would be shocked if he ever came downstairs without a shirt on; the man of the people who nurses an unbridled ambition (in Perry’s personal mythology and art, his teddy bear Alan Measles represents the omnipotent artist-God that he would partly like to be); the popular artist who turned his back on the avant garde. Nor is Claire a stable identity. She has evolved from Monsoon girl, to Little Bo Peep, to chic woman of the world – and now has a thing for clown outfits.

‘You don’t decide to be a transvestite when you’re a sophisticated adult – you’re a child. Our sexuality is formed in the Petri dish of our childhood.’ Outfit designed by Central St Martins student Carmen Chan. Photograph: Tim Walker/Guardian

The sofa we are sitting on is covered with one of Perry’s tapestries. It’s a typical work, covered in words and references to places of pilgrimage for the spiritual (Amritsar, Nirvana) and the materialistic (Davos). Perhaps there was something inevitable about his move into tapestry, a craft every bit as traditional as pottery, and so conservative, it’s radical. Did he stitch it himself? No, he says, of course not – it would take for ever. (As it is, it took him two months to complete the drawing on which it was based; the sewing is then done digitally.) Can he sew? “No. I did basic embroidery and can probably mend a sock.” Now he sounds a bit defensive.

In one of the wonderful Reith lectures Perry gave last year, he concluded that today’s art establishment is something of a dictatorship, simpering about the avant garde, snobbish towards the middle ground. He is dismissive of the avant garde, says it’s old hat, conservative. “It’s rather tired and insular. It’s talking to itself a lot of the time. I embrace the middle ground, because curiously it has more edge to it than the cutting edge. It has been a weirdly neglected path for the audience of contemporary art. I’m making art not for people who don’t like art, but for people who are interested but maybe alienated by the more esoteric pieces. I’m addressing them, and I think that’s more interesting than being yet another avant-garde try-hard.” His test of how good a piece is is simple: will he still like it when he comes down in the morning?

Perry with his wife Phillipa and daughter Florence, receiving an OBE this year. Photograph: Alan Davidson

He then gives me a brilliant off-the-cuff lecture about how photography destroyed classical narrative paintings, leading to the formation of a new intellectual art elite that trades on abstracts, concepts and multiple meanings. Perry says the problem with many art students is that they are too anxious to create stuff they simply like. “You have to know the impact of everything you’re making, because that is the nature of contemporary art. It is very self-conscious: it knows, or should be seen to know. Irony has become this crippling get-out-of-jail-free card. Britain has the toad of irony sitting on it.”

Has he been squatted on by the toad of irony? Oh yes, he says. He admits that what attracted him to pottery in the first place was its very naffness. “Unwittingly, I stumbled across a niche that hadn’t been occupied by anybody in the art world. There is a long history of ceramics, of course, but nobody who had really embraced the conventional craft, the orthodoxies: pots that are pot-shaped, that are fired, that are glazed, that are decorative.”

When did he realise it was a niche? “Well, it evolved gradually. I, like many artists, am brilliant at post-rationalisation. You stumble into it.”

His first pot sold for £50. He was 24, living in a squat and shocked that anybody would want to buy his work. To date, the highest price a single vase has fetched is £120,000. Is he loaded? “I have a very healthy income, but I don’t make much work.” If he had identified pottery as a niche from the start, would that make him a cynical artist? He laughs that great brute of a laugh. “I’m not in danger of suddenly looking cynical. Hehehehehe! I think that boat has sailed long ago. Hehehehe!” So people already think he’s cynical? “Sometimes they do. That’s the nature of my humour. I ramp it up. My default has always been to be as cynical as possible. Then I’ll row back.” Is he cynical by nature? “No, not at all. It’s probably a protection. The classic thing: the last refuge of the undying romantic.”

Perry’s World Leaders Attend The Marriage Of Alan Measles And Claire Perry, 2009. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist/Victoria Miro London © Grayson Perry

Some of his detractors have dismissed the cross-dressing as cynical, a shtick. But they simply don’t understand the nature of transvestism, he says. “People say if you’re trying to access some kind of feminine, emotional experience, dressing up is a rather crude way of going about it. And I always go, yeah, but you don’t decide to be a transvestite when you’re a sophisticated adult – you’re a child. Our sexuality is formed in the Petri dish of our childhood. So that’s why it’s always historic, that’s why men like women who look like their mothers, because that formed their emotional life when they were young.” Friends who have met his mother say Claire bears a resemblance to her.

It’s not even as if he thinks he looks good as a woman, it’s just something he has to do. He gives himself seven out of 10 as a man and nought out of 10 as a woman. Binnie has said that even when he was young, he looked like a middle-aged woman; she’d pretend to be his niece. Perry’s girlfriends have embraced his cross dressing as his parents never did. His mother told Philippa that she must have been desperate to marry a transvestite.

Perry rarely dresses up unless he’s going out, because it’s such an effort. Does he ever get bored with it? Now he tells me I don’t understand the nature of transvestism. “No, I’m not bored with transvestism. That would be silly – I’m a transvestite. The dress is only one element of the psycho-sexual process. Just because you don’t have a dress on doesn’t stop you being a tranny, in the same way as, if you’re not in bed with a man, it doesn’t stop you being gay.”

Does he still find it sexually exciting? “Oh yes,” he shouts excitedly. “Yeah!” But there is a problem, he says, with being a very public tranny. You mean, you couldn’t be seen at the Royal Academy in a nice frock and a stiffy? He nods enthusiastically. “You couldn’t do it. If I could manage it, I’m sure I’d be thinking how to do it. But I can’t.” He pauses. “My days of a spontaneous erection are long gone, anyway,” he adds a little sadly.

As a young man, he dressed as a more conventional woman. Why did Claire change her look? “I had a Damascene moment when I realised that the masquerade of dressing up as a woman and getting away with it, or ‘passing’, as they call it in the tranny world, was a fairly unrewarding experience. I used to come back from shopping in Oxford Street in my Monsoon outfit and think, well, nobody really gave me a second glance and that was boring.” He wanted to be noticed? “I was always slightly envious of those trannies who dressed more flamboyantly and didn’t give a shit.” But why, for instance, the Little Bo Peep look? “It’s a classic look. I used to call it the crack cocaine of femininity. It’s the furthest from the male macho look you could get. It’s vulnerable, it’s young, it’s humiliating. The fantasy of humiliation is a big drug for many men.”

These days, most of his dresses are made by students at Central Saint Martins, where he teaches a course in fashion (“teaching them is pushing it: I expose them to my sensibilities”), and he has to tell them he’s got more than enough Little Bo Peep numbers. At 54, he thinks he is struggling with his look. “Trannies go through this horrible cycle. When they’re really young and just post-pubescent, they can look gorgeous as a woman – you’re fairly androgynous, you’re thin, you just look good. When I look back at the first photographs, I realise what a wasted opportunity it was. I didn’t have the budget, experience or confidence to pull it off. Now I’ve got the budget, experience and confidence, but I’ve not got the features. You go through this cycle where you get older and older, and you get to around 35 to 40 when you’re looking your most manly. Then there’s a little payoff at the end, where, as you get really old, you become androgynous again.” He can’t wait for his 70s: if he’s got his hair, he’s going for the lilac rinse. “I’m going to go the whole way. I’m looking forward to being an old artist and not giving a shit.”

‘I had a Damascene moment when I realised that the masquerade of dressing up as a woman and getting away with it, or “passing”, as they call it in the tranny world, was a fairly unrewarding experience.’ Outfit by Central St Martins student Oto Kazumi. Photograph: Tim Walker/Guardian

I ask how he broached his transvestism with his daughter, Flo, now 22. It was obvious from a young age, he says, because she’d see him in his frocks. Did he go into details about what it meant to him? No, he didn’t think it was appropriate. “When she was very young, we used to say, ‘Oh, Daddy’s dressing up to go to a party’, which was pretty true most of the time. I never sat her down and talked about my sexuality. Too much information!”

It was when Flo was four that he started going to therapy. “I was getting very depressed and anxious. I wasn’t fully functional. It’s classic: you wait for the chickens of your childhood to come home to roost. Often, when you have your own children, when they get to the age that you had your problems, that’s when there’s some unconscious recognition that brings home your own trauma.” He went to therapy for six years, says it was hugely helpful, and that it continues to inform his art – not least his work on identity.

He opens a few drawers, and takes out roughs and notional ideas for the new portraits, and talks about some of the people he has met. There is a Muslim convert (a 25-year-old white woman), a deaf Jewish woman who chose to identify primarily as deaf rather than Jewish because her synagogue was unsympathetic to her disability, the gay adoptees, Chris Huhne. What fascinates him is the layers within an identity. So, for example, he wanted to know whether Huhne now identified with the prisoners he had just left, or with the rich and powerful he is more used to mixing with. “I interviewed him before he went to jail. He was there as a powerful white male who potentially was going to lose some of that power. I was interested in what effect prison and that condemnation would have on his confidence and identity.”

And has he changed? “You’ll have to see.” Perry comes over all coy. Oh, come on. He grins. “Of course he hasn’t changed. There’s not a flicker. I was fascinated and appalled. I’m white, male, middle-aged myself, and if there’s one aspect I feel alienated by, it’s the class thing. So to see someone with that chutzpah and bullet-proof, Teflon confidence close up is fascinating. And sort of horrifying. At one point, he bragged and said something like, ‘I must be the only politician who comes out of prison without changing [see footnote].’”

‘The idea that your identity is a solid, consistent, tangible thing is an illusion Photograph: Tim Walker/Guardian

We’re back looking at the self-portrait on the wall, the myriad contradictions and kinks of Grayson Perry that are there for all to see. Between the elegant calligraphy, words and terms such as Tinnitus (which Perry has: he is deaf in one ear), Bullshit Detector, Devil’s Advocate, Matey, there are drawings of the art critic Robert Hughes and the poet Philip Larkin. I compliment him on these likenesses and ask if he’s ever worked as a caricaturist. He takes umbrage, at this more than anything else I’ve asked. “No! You just trace them off a photograph – it’s not that difficult. The skill of the likeness is not one I worry about having. It’s what 14-year-old boys in art class worry about when they’re copying the album cover of their favourite band.”

Well, I’m just saying I thought they were good. No need to throw a wobbly. “I’m sorry, Simon, that empirical judgment of art is something I try to avoid. Craft is a dangerous pit to fall into.”

I burst out laughing. “You’re insulted when I say it’s a good likeness.”

“Sometimes I think it’s an easy way of judging something.”

Look, I say, I’m not going to say you’re a brilliant artist because you can do a decent Larkin likeness.

“I’ll take the compliment!”

“No, you won’t, you’re insulted.”

Now we’re both laughing. Perry is too self-aware not to realise that, for all his protestations about representing the middle ground, he’s still a bit of an art snob at heart.

I ask whether the television project has taught him anything about his own identity. Of course, he says, you continue to learn. “I was reading a book by Julian Baggini about identity, and he said, ‘I is a verb masquerading as a noun.’ You perform yourself. It’s like going for a walk, you carry it along with you and it changes all the time. So the idea that there is a solid, consistent, tangible thing is an illusion.”

He compares it to the tapestry we’re sitting on. “If you want an analogy, all the colours are present right across the tapestry. There are 20 colours, that’s why it’s so thick. But the machine brings the colour to the surface when it’s needed. I think that’s an analogy for our character. We’ve got all of ourselves there, but the bit that’s necessary in any given moment comes to the surface. So, with my daughter, I’m a father. When I’m in the studio, I’m an artist. When I’m out, I’m ‘Grayson Perry’. So you ask what your identifiers are – artist, tranny, father, man, motorcyclist – and you’ve got a hierarchy of things. And that’s the nature of identity, isn’t it?”

One of the most important things he learned in therapy is that you can only begin to understand yourself if you confront your ambition. “When we did group therapy, we went through the various aspects of relationships, and the last one was wishes, hopes and dreams, and that was the most tender, embarrassing and secret of all. Because it can be something very close to the heart and you get shot down, and you don’t want to be seen as an idiot. Therapy is very useful for being ambitious, because you can sound out in a safe space what you’d like to have a go at.”

And was his secret that he was hungrier for success than he would admit? “Yes. It goes in tandem with a realisation of your abilities. A good therapist will give you an accurate reflection of your abilities. I came to realise, maybe I am pretty good.”

How good? Aha! he says, as if he’s caught me out trying to catch him out. And he roars with laughter. “Erm, I’m brilliant at being Grayson Perry. Hehehehehe! Really brilliant at it.”

Chris Huhne: ‘There I was, just out of jail, having a full English with Grayson, with his glitter on, in a very steamy motorway cafe.’ Photograph: Suki Dhanda/Guardian

Grayson Perry’s subjects: Chris Huhne, former minister for energy and climate change

I said yes right away. Grayson got in touch around the time of the court case [in March 2013, Huhne was found guilty of perverting the course of justice, and sentenced to eight months in jail]. I knew and liked his work, and I thought it was rather an honour. In fact, I was hoping he might turn me into a pot.

We met three times. The first two sessions, before I went to prison, were at my place in Clerkenwell [in central London]. It was very informal: I cooked him tuna steak and lentils, and he took a load of photographs and sketches of me. I took some photos of him, too; I’m not sure he was expecting that. He was particularly interested in what the prison experience would be like: the third time we met was actually on the day I came out. He’d been at the Baftas the previous evening, and still had his glitter on. There I was, just out of jail, having a full English with Grayson, with his glitter on, in a very steamy motorway cafe.

Grayson was intrigued by what it was like to go from being a cabinet minister to a prisoner. But his ideas were a little wide of the mark. He seemed to feel that a minister was inevitably part of the establishment, and that this was therefore an extraordinarily awful event for me. I explained to him that I didn’t go into politics to be somebody – I never cared about ministerial cars or apartments; in fact, I got rid of both. I kept assuring him that the worst part was not going to prison, but losing a job I really cared about. But I’m not sure he entirely believed me.

Alex White: ‘I can’t wait to see how he has played with the idea of changing from female to male.’ Photograph: Suki Dhanda/Guardian

Alex White, transgender man

I came out as trans two years ago, at 23. I told my friends and my mum, and after I started taking testosterone I began making YouTube videos, documenting my transition. That’s how Grayson found me. When they got in touch, I thought it must be fake: I wasn’t sure who he was. Then I looked him up and was like, “Oh, him!” I was really chuffed to be asked.

Our first session was on my 24th birthday. I had some friends and family round, and then there was this famous artist standing in the kitchen, talking to my mum. He sat on my bed like one of my mates, asking about my experience. I know he plays with gender himself, and I think he was interested in the fact that being transgender is still kind of taboo. It was worse when I was at school – I remember Googling “boy trapped in a girl’s body”, because there was no other way to research what I was feeling. There’s much more awareness now, but sitting for Grayson still felt an important thing to do: seeing people like yourself in the media is the only way you know you’re not alone.

I can still see him sitting in my room, drawing me. I did feel a bit self-conscious; I couldn’t stop thinking about how I might look through his eyes. I’m still wondering about that, not least because I was a completely different person then. I’ve since had surgery, taken the testosterone and changed my name. I can’t wait to see how he has played with the idea of changing from female to male, and with the concept of Britishness. I’m from a Caribbean background, and think of myself as Jamaican and British. That’s the thing about being British now: it means so many different things.

Rylan Clark: ‘We clicked instantly. Grayson said he chose me because he could see through what the telly was doing to me, how it was making me into a character rather than a person.’ Photograph: Suki Dhanda/Guardian

Rylan Clark, reality TV presenter

There are two different sides to me: famous Rylan and normal Ross, my birth name. The first time I met Grayson, I’d just come out of Celebrity Big Brother. We clicked instantly. He said the reason he chose me was because he could see through what the telly was doing to me, how it was making me into a character rather than a person. Over the days we spent together, I was probably the most honest I’ve ever been. I’ve normally got my guard up in an interview – I know what to say and what not to say – but this was like rehab, as if I’d jumped out of my body and started asking myself questions.

We talked about the clear-cut divide between those two sides of my character. We visited places I hadn’t been to in years, even the house in London where I grew up and I’d never been back to. A woman opened the door, saying, “Are you Ross?” She showed me the cupboard under the stairs: the words “Ross – Spice Girls” were still written on the wall. Then we sat in the park that I used to play in as a kid, dreaming of being famous. Fifteen years on, I was sitting there thinking, “Why did I want that?”

We’re from different worlds. Like 90% of the population, all I knew about him was that he was that bloke who’d worn a dress to the Baftas. Now I’m bringing Grayson to my audience and he’s bringing me to his. I just hope that after this, some of the people in his world who probably do look at me and think, “What an idiot” will sit there and go, “Actually, he’s normal.”

Christopher and Veronica Devas: ‘Whatever the portrait turns out to be, it will be one of the highlights of our experience of living with dementia.’ Photograph: Suki Dhanda/Guardian

Veronica Devas, partner of an Alzheimer’s ambassador

The Alzheimer’s Society put us in touch. My husband, Christopher, was diagnosed six years ago and has since become something of an ambassador for the charity.

I was a bit worried about the effect being interviewed and sketched by Grayson might have on Christopher; about whether they’d even be able to communicate. But I needn’t have been: Grayson is terrifically empathetic, as well as full of mischief and fun.

I’m not sure whether Christopher can fully remember it, but he still talks about “that very nice man who came”.

We all spent several days together. We took a boat out into Poole harbour in the pouring rain – before his diagnosis, Christopher was a keen sailor – and we also went along to a support group for people with dementia.

On the third day, Grayson sketched the two of us together, which he said was the first time he’d done any sketching since art college. Whatever the portrait turns out to be, it will be one of the highlights of our experience of living with dementia.

Christopher doesn’t view himself any differently from how he was before – he doesn’t think his identity has gone. If you spoke to him, he would say, “I’m not dying – I’m living with Alzheimer’s.” He has an incredibly positive outlook, and for that, he is very lucky.

Melanie Cohen: ‘What will I look like in Grayson’s work? I have no idea. I just hope I look like me.’ Photograph: Suki Dhanda/Guardian

Melanie Cohen, plus-size beauty contestant

Grayson sketched me and two other girls, George and Sarah, during a boot-camp weekend for Miss Plus Size International, a beauty pageant for bigger girls. While he was working, we talked about why we’d got involved with the plus-size movement. I couldn’t stop myself from crying.

For 10 years, I went through a really bad marriage and a really bad divorce. I was never skinny, but that’s how I came to put on all my weight: I was comfort-eating. Then, one day in 2012, my mum called and told me to turn on the TV and watch a show called Britain’s Biggest Beauty Queens. It turned out to be a documentary about a pageant for plus-size women. I thought it sounded amazing, so I applied right away. A few months later, I heard I’d got through. I just couldn’t believe it.

Everything has changed for me since then. The way the media and society portray bigger people is very negative and dangerous; the girls we see in magazines don’t bear any relationship to reality. The plus-size movement is about encouraging men and women to feel good about who they are, no matter their shape or size.

Grayson is a good dancer. He came out with us to Big Girls Paradise, a club night for bigger girls and the men who love them. He went nuts on the dancefloor. And at boot camp we all jumped in the swimming pool after dinner.

It’s amazing to have the chance to appear in an artwork about what it means to be British. I feel 100% British – I’m based in Glasgow, and I voted no in the Scottish referendum. What will I look like in Grayson’s work? I have no idea. I just hope I look like me. However it turns out, I’m sure it will be magnificent.

• Interviews by Laura Barnett.

The Channel 4 series Who Are You? With Grayson Perry begins in late October; the accompanying free display at the National Portrait Gallery, sponsored by Coutts, opens on 25 October. Perry’s book, Playing To The Gallery, is published by Penguin.

• This article was amended on 31 October 2014 to append the following footnote: to clarify, what Chris Huhne actually said was “I’m probably the only politician who’s been in prison whose views about prison have not changed”.