November 20th 2012: the day my beautiful extraordinary Mum died
May 6th 2013: the day that would have been her birthday
Not a conscious decision to stop writing during this time, just that my heart went out of it. I have continued small work, drawing and etching but no painting, no sculpture, just work fitted around the necessity of sorting out my Mother’s house and all the contents. A huge sad job, going through her papers, clearing her house of furniture, pictures and possessions, cleaning and organising, with the aim to put the house on the market.
Not just down to me but as I live nearby and was her main carer and now the executer, the responsibility seems to lie with me. I have siblings, my sister lives abroad and my brother is a couple of hours drive away, however we’ve managed to all get together to work out who should take what, thankfully we are each so different from each other that the possessions haven’t split us apart. Our tastes and style so entirely different, the spaces we inhabit so different and it seems that the memories we associate with the objects are different too. Over the last few months we’ve been able to appreciate each others strengths. My brother’s ability with everything mechanical, he is a fixer, arriving with his van full of tools and his happy positive outlook. My sister’s strength lay in her cataloguing, there were so many books and I was at a complete loss as to what to do with them all. And me what was my strength? No idea, maybe just the ability to keep at it until the job was finished.
Now I am back in my studio, preparing work for the Open Studio and it feels good to be here.