Materials

Why These Materials?

Photos, passports, a paybook, postcards, certificates and exercise books, crammed into a small brown leather suitcase - collected documents and family albums inherited from my German mother-in-law, fragments of an era spanning two world wars.

None of the family is interested in this mixed lot, I'm put in charge of dealing with it. The problem is, I don't know any of the people in the photos. Who's the old man, the girl with the plaits, the soldiers sitting round the long table drinking beer? How should I deal with the postcards from Minsk or the grey, snowy landscapes in Flanders?

Perhaps I can use them for an art project. I'm not quite sure how. I start by sorting through them, picking the odd item out and putting it to one side. And then, without any reference to chronology or origin, I begin to put them into a new sequence.

Not following any plan, I work on some of the material in an abstract way, involving myself with colour and texture. Alternatively, I don't alter the photos much and keep to a kind of narrative. I'm particularly taken by the range of black, grey and white I can work with. I use inks and acrylics and collate the modified pieces in concertina books or small series of images. Sometimes the original content is visible, but the narrative is obscure, only the photos of soldiers retain something of their original context.

I use thread to create new outlines or set a new focus. The embroidery thread is also old and wonderfully aged. Shades of white - ivory, cream, and even the pure white slightly tainted by age, with rust stains or smudged by dirt. I choose from fine silk, linen or mercerised cotton thread of excellent quality. All yarns were handed down the French side of my family, in small dark blue cartons. Quite by coincidence, two families whose countries fought against each other in both world wars, are intertwined in this project.