Last week I returned to teaching after an unexpected week caring. Ordinarily I don’t bother with New Year, but this year I watched fireworks peppering the sky, lighting my way as I retrieved my father from A&E. Concussion; stitches; more medical appointments; endless cups of tea; making work? Not so much.
My practice mostly concerns the narrative of possessions, that is objects and homes; links to personal and community histories and beliefs traced by the things we have. Before I moved a couple of years ago, I started a project called Postcards from Home. I printed postcards from lino blocks documenting 20 years lived in the same house. The postcards show my life through things, a catalogue of conscious and unconscious decisions.
Being at Dad’s for the week made me aware of his things or rather the lack of them. He has honed his ownership such that whilst cabinets and drawers fill the space they are often as not empty. Whilst our possessions speak of our past, maybe they are as unreliable as memory. Drawing at Dad’s I reflected on his spaces and what was absent and on my space and what I’d put there.
