My Little House?

I am going to write a piece about my own work for The Waiting Room exhibition. After deciding on what photo I was going to include in the show, I then had to consider how to present it. I first needed a piece of writing that summed up the photo to me in correlation with the brief and my personal proposal. I found this piece incredibly difficult to write, I also did not mean for it to be as emotional as it was as this is not how I usually write. I looked at the photograph and wrote from my heart and found it incredibly sad. These are the words that went alongside the work:

My Nan marks her little house with life. The house contains her essence, until her presence seems to be held within each surface, each wall. An overwhelming sense of comfort, strength and softness. A reassurance that everything will be okay, you can get through things together, you just have to face it. Memories reside here of a time when things were very different: childhood. A time that has not been forgotten but displaced, making way for the complications of getting older. Yet in this space,these memories are held, preserved, waiting to be retold, shared, laughed about and lived once more. 


I thought about how I felt that that chair represented my Nan. The things that I thought about when I looked at it, what I felt when I enter her house. I attempted to encompass those emotions I had in a very short piece of writing, whilst referencing to the ideas of marks on life, how we are contained, our presence in a surface. I included not only this but what this presence makes me feel, or remember. This was a really important piece of writing for me, perhaps one of the most important things I have ever written, I have never been so emotional when writing before. I knew from that moment that my work needs writing like this, instead of writing something so analytical which is a usual reaction from me, I realise now I need to dig deep and write from the heart. The words were much more powerful. They were a part of the work for me, more important than the photograph even. After writing the piece I put it and the photograph together and tried to detach myself and look at it with the eye of the viewer, which is very difficult, if not impossible, but I at least needed to try. I made the connections with the photograph, by describing characteristics of my Nan which were visually the same elements that the chair had, I concluded that this connection was possible. I emailed Sarah this piece of writing and she felt it worked well with the photo, its always important to get someone else’s opinion who is not so involved, because although I feel it works, those who know nothing of my relationship with my Nan might not necessarily understand. Sarah said the piece made her feel very emotional which is something my work has never done, but I felt very proud of doing something like this that is so out of my comfort zone. I am usually very detached from my work emotionally, so this piece meant more to me than anything I had done before.

I then had to consider the presentation. I wanted to make sure that the piece of writing and the photograph were physically connected, purely because it was such a vital part, that connection needed to be known, if they were separate it would just look like an artists statement about the work; but this was the work. I had been experimenting with using an old typewriter that I borrowed from Sarah, I tried writing this piece out on that and it just worked. Its difficult to explain, but when you see something visually and it is just perfect for the piece you know you don’t have to try any other format: you have it. This added that age to the piece that was a continuous theme through the photograph and later the frame. I did consider handwriting the piece, I think this would have been personal but less clear and refined, my handwriting is terrible, and the typewriter had that quirkiness that worked with the image and the building. It also made the writing more formal, like a caption. 

The next issue was the frame. I knew I wanted to frame the piece and hang it horizontally, I had already decided as well that I wanted to attach the writing to the frame so that in hung down from string, this meant that not only was it connected, but could be hung or propped easily without ruining the effect of the work. Because of the amount of work we had in the exhibition I wanted to make sure that it was versatile. I didn’t really want a new bought frame for the piece, it wouldn’t fit in with the work and it would make it something that it wasn’t. I realised I needed an old frame. I went to my Nan’s house and looked through all the frames that she has at hers, and struggled to find one that worked with the aesthetics of the image. However, it was a very strange moment for me when I come across a perfect frame hung up on the wall of her little house. It was a photograph of my mum and my dad at their wedding, in an old fashioned black frame that was covered in dust and was quite fragile. The frame was perfect, it was bittersweet for me because my Dad passed away when I was younger and it was an emotional moment when I realised that a photograph of him was the one that worked perfectly. Although the frame was black and it visually worked, it was the meaning of the photograph that fitted so well with the emotions I have been going through throughout the making of the entire piece. I kept the photograph of my dad and mum behind my own photo, which fitted exactly right. My family and myself know what photograph is behind my work which in a way makes it even more special for myself, it was a personal touch that I knew would get the waterworks going when my family went to see the piece, it certainly did it for me. I looked at the finished piece and with a distanced eye could make the connections with the brief, and the writing underneath the photograph. As well as the parts of the image that were key. I was pleased with the piece, I think that its something that I would like to explore further, usually I would say that I could change this bit about it or something else, but for this, and the time that I made it, it was exactly right. Obviously it could have been developed but I didn’t want this, that is something that I will look into doing in the future. This piece was the start I really needed for this final year of the degree. 

As for the location of my work in the show it was on the pillar next to Sarah’s video piece. I had no problem with the location, I think it really made the work stand out. But the bright green paint of the walls was not the most ideal of backgrounds. Although the green made the work stand out, it was a bit too much, however a white wall would not have worked either unless I used ageing yellow paper to do the writing on so that it didn’t fade away. A old fashioned wallpapered wall would have worked well I think, almost like it would be returned to its natural setting, a piece of art in a place where you wouldn’t think you'd encounter it. I think the piece look refined, and I really thought out each element, it was quite simple, as is a lot of my work, so it looks intentional. I wish to evoke a certain feeling in the viewer and I think I did this. Particularly with my family, my Nan had not seen the writing at all and she cried when she read it. it was very personal and I knew that she would like what I put, it was important that I had her approval of the piece, in a way it was something for her more than the show. She liked it so much that I am going to frame it together for her for Christmas, maybe then I can see what the work would look like put back into the place that it came from: My Nan’s Little House.