Threads

I’ve been ignoring the flashback I talked about in the previous post – or at least I have been trying to. Some things are best left to the depths of my brain to sort out, while the rest of it gets on with life. Occasionally it forces its way forwards and I find myself pondering on it. Sometimes it comes forward in that weird time between sleep and wakefulness. I am aware of it now, and am not afraid to nod at it in acknowledgement. I can see threads of it in my work, and even in my life.

I got told off for saying I was turning into my Mum… obviously I’m not, she had such different influences on her life than I do on mine. But she is with me at every turn and in the mirror more and more as I age. I know that other women will recognise this as both a comfort and a curse. My Mum was great. I hold so much of her in me. But I rebel against her too. And it really annoys me that it is in this very rebellion that I probably resemble her most. No escape.

So this work, and the memories that have surfaced should be acknowledged and respected. But I need them to calm down a bit, so that I feel able to rip them up and throw them into the air. Not think of them as sacrosanct, but able to make use of them in my own way.

A while back, I was making a group of pieces that had the working title “Respectable”. These held echoes of the generation above; my Mum and my Mother-in-Law too. It was as if I was creating a balance, having worked with ideas of childhood, it was the follow-through. I’ve probably abandoned this work, half way through one of the pieces, at some point I may go back in and finish it. I don’t feel the need though now. The thing I was looking for has been answered, so it doesn’t hold my interest any more.

Which also brings me back to the discussion on art work as autobiography…

I am hoping that this current state of affairs hasn’t made me too self-aware about the work I make. I don’t want to consciously be autobiographical… I think I would alter the path if I felt that… maybe… but… I am fascinated by the function in my brain that keeps me in the dark throughout the making, but then suddenly reveals itself to me.

It makes me feel as if I have some sort of multiple personality disorder.

There are always connections. It all comes from me, so there must be.

Sometimes they are obvious to me. Sometimes not for ages, sometimes never… or at least, not yet.

I have conversations with people… friends and family… and this weekend during the LOAF event with complete strangers. It was while replaying one of these stranger-encounters in my head that a blinding flash of childhood came to me, and I had to sit down to deal with it. Such a vivid memory it took my breath away.

I have 3 bits of work attached to my studio wall. I felt I was feeling around for something, the connection. This flashback has linked them. They don’t quite say it, but they hold the clues.

I am shocked and stunned by the way my brain does this to me, tries to make sense of my life, episodes I thought long forgotten. It can be a bit like a dream… the sort that goes:

“we were in our house, but although it was our house it was really my childhood home, you were there, but it wasn’t you, it was someone different, but I thought of them like I do you, so it was you…”

This memory involves my Mum. My work and my dreams often involve my Mum, who I seem to have become. She died 18 years ago… I know this because my youngest son has just turned 18 yrs old. She died when he was 3 months old. I see our relationship over the years, and how it becomes more understandable as I get older, and see the reasons. I suddenly understand something I saw 40 years ago, because suddenly it has happened to me.

There have been conversations here about work being TOO personal and autobiographical. I don’t understand. I have no choice. The work that comes out of me just happens. Whether it is autobiographical or not is often invisible to me until it is too late, a done deal.

The work settles.

There is usually with me, a period of frantic activity on the edge of the new idea. I must get it done as quickly as possible, I must rush through that first stage to see if it works. Obsessive constant drawing/sewing or whatever. When I get to the point where I know that it works, I can stop, breathe, wait, look. My hands might shake a bit while I decide. The bra drawings had to be done. I did two or three a day until I had enough. I didn’t know how many enough was… more than five…. more than six…. Now I know it works I can stop for a while and review the situation.

While I’m stopped I can look back at something else too. Work with muslin, dismantled clothing and dismantled patchwork. Work with words. The words are becoming important again. I have written quite a lot lately… even these words hint at the archaeology i mentioned in the previous post:

Secret Drawer

I tucked it away in a drawer, among world war string and batteries

I thought it would be forgotten, among the falsehoods and the flatteries

I pushed it right against the back, covered it with precious rubbish

Never to see the light of day, unremembered, lonely, punished

The secret’s shut inside my head, it’s mostly disregarded

But I trip up on it now and then when moments are unguarded

I’m also not sure of connections between the made and the written. They must be there, because they both came from me. Bo and I have talked about making connections recently. Does the work we are now doing for our joint show have to be connected with each other, does it have to connect with what has gone before?

Part of me – the very small intellectual I keep above my left ear – says there must be, and insists upon me finding it to justify my work. Another part of me – a gobby student with authority issues and a flaunted cleavage – tells me to sod ‘em and get on with it.

I know which I prefer.

Other people’s blogs hold answers too.

Discussion with Jean McEwan, and Sharon Hall Shipp brought up the topic of archaeology. It struck a real chord with me, with the work I’m doing now, and what has gone before. I am digging into the past. Sometimes it is my own, sometimes not, but that doesn’t really matter. It all has resonance. I dig into my brain, my emotions, my memories. I ferret about for things in second hand and charity shops, waiting for that tingle in my fingers that tells me I’ve found something, unearthed it. Something that no one else has spotted. Then I do something to it, to highlight what I see.

I had thought that these line drawings of bras were different, but they’re not really are they? These garments have been discarded for some reason. I rediscover them. I record their state in simple line drawings in black ink. I now have nine A3 drawings on layout paper. I wanted them to have a fragility. (Storing them is a bloody nightmare… I need a plan chest.) I wanted to be able to see one drawing though another. The more of them I do, the clearer it gets. I am piecing together a sort of conglomeration of a woman’s life. I don’t think it is mine, but you never know, it might turn out to be. What I feel though, is that these bras are too clean, too nice. I know that out there are bras that have been worn into the ground. Grey, frayed, the elastic no longer elastic. Desperate bras.

The clothes on the top, for public viewing say what a woman wants to show the world, how she wants to be seen (presuming the clothes have been chosen by the wearer, there are circumstances where this may not be the case). The clothes underneath, unseen except by a partner, perhaps not by anyone, speak about how a woman feels about herself.

The discarding of the bra is seen differently, depending on who you ask. It might indicate a passing of a stage, be that puberty, motherhood, maturity, menopause, illness, death. It can also be a sexual act. I have only asked women what they think of this series of drawings. What do men think? Tell me.

So I keep drawing, keep collecting.

The original bra that sparked it all off, has been embroidered, but I am thinking of unpicking it. It is a different story this one. My interference minimal – more observational, a scientific approach? Archaeological?

(If you happen to come across the aforementioned desperate bra, please do get in touch – no questions asked)

I can get back down to my underwear now…

(When I started this blog, someone told me I should always have an opening line that would grab my audience… perhaps this is the first time I’ve managed it in two yrs?)

Arts week in school is over. Two things happened almost simultaneously while I was mopping the clay from the floor (again) when the bell went at 3:30:

The first thing was an overwhelming weakness in my legs, that almost made me sink to the slippery floor, exhaustion, and relief that the week was done.

The second was an amazing flood of adrenalin that halted the descent, and helped me whizz over the remaining dusty floor… My time was my own again. The call of the charity shops, the desire to fondle second hand bras. I think those closest to me are quite concerned about this current obsession. Am I perving around the edges they wonder? Or is it deeper than that?

So tomorrow, I’m off to town to chat up the people in the back rooms of Oxfam and Scope… “Excuse me, do you have any bras that are too manky to put on the shelves?”

Hmmm… Perving around the edges? Defo.