Even when I do something that I initially believe to be unconnected to the rest of my work, it turns out not to be after all. I find this hugely comforting but also exciting, liberating… because it means I can do whatever pops into my head!
When I embarked upon “Blown Away”* I believed it to be a special project for the US. Separate from the rest of my work conceptually, if not materially.
Over the last few weeks, having made “Daughter”, I start to make connections again. I want them to meet. So far, they have not been in the same place as each other, father and daughter estranged. At the end of August they will be united. I feel this should be some sort of event, it should be marked in some way.
I put up a statement to such effect on my facebook artist page, here, if you’re interested:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Elena-Thomas-Art-and-Textiles/123618094363659?ref=hl
and Marion Michell answered…
“Post-memory connection – what we hold from our parents, what we’ve gleaned from silences and tantalisingly oblique utterances – use that as a way in?”
Of course… that parental link again. This is what I was thinking… the parent and child and the threads cast between… I’m starting to grope about for ideas to install these pieces as one.
The silences and tantalisingly oblique utterances really got me going… yes… thank you Marion!
(Marion’s amazing blog can be found here on a-n too if you haven’t already seen it https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/sleep-drunk-i-dance)
Even recently, there have been events in my life that have triggered memories, at least I think they are memories, of my mother, things she said and did… her stance and body language. Sometimes it is as if I HAVE HER muscle memory. I am not one for the paranormal, so I’m not seeing it as a possession or haunting, but a passing on of the way we behave/think/move… and the way that brings memory to the fore…
I did something, I thought something, I felt it…. it was definitely me, awake, conscious.
A memory slammed into me like a sledgehammer, of my mother, stood in the same position, saying the same words… and it has made me pick over that set of circumstances and read them differently.
I had no way of knowing, but was she doing what I am doing, thinking what I am thinking, feeling what I am feeling? I would previously have thought such a thing ridiculous… but now I’m not so sure….
So this piece of so called separate work gathers more and more layers of meaning…
At the weekend, my brother gave me a notebook. He thought that as I was now writing songs and singing it was appropriate that I should have it. It is a book full of my mum’s favourite songs, mostly popular Irish folk, it must be said. Handwritten of course.
If she had had access to all of the opportunities I have now, would she have been a singer and songwriter? I know she had a great voice, was always singing. My childhood memories are full of song, as are those of my first son, Dan. Joyous occasions, I remember like yesterday, him perched on the arm of her chair, barely a toddler, singing “Nud, Nud, Glorous Nud” as he got to the end she would say “hold that note!” and he would, almost to the point of passing out. There would be hysterical laughter, then we’d have to do it all again.
It makes me sad that my younger son Liam, born ten years later, was never to get to know her, as she died when he was 3 months old. But she sang to him every time she was with him.
I need to do something tender with this work I think.
*I feel I should interrupt myself here to thank Bo Jones for the title. It’s a corker, and open to so much interpretation from the viewer, it has started so many conversations, given people a point of access to the work, and discussion – artists and non-artists. Titles are extremely important. Cheers Bo!
