IMAGINARIUM

The other day I watched a documentery about a woman who has ME(Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) and how it has devastated her life since she became ill. She met her husband at college, they got married, they had their whole lives ahead of them and then it hit. She got a virus, but she never got better. From that time on she has been confined to her bed and mostly unable to walk. the documentery unfolds with not just her story, but others with the same disease. Still no real understanding of what causes ME, it is often written off as a psychiatric condition. Once upon a time MS was seen in the same way.

What does this have to do with my project? Well, when I moved to Exeter with my 16 year old daughter I started to notice that , oh I think i'm entering the menopause. I had had several years of changing cycles, but now they were starting to tail off. Hurrah, I thought, no more periods and everything that comes with it! How wrong I was. An eruption of labour like pains, night sweats, hot flushes, palpatations thudding through me all day, strange sensations in my spine that affected my walking and talking, sleeplessness, headaches , the list went on. It started when I was 50 and now at 60 I am coming out the other side. I have had 2 bouts of covid , still getting over it. So watching this woman tell her story I felt an empathy for all the problems and frustrations she faced. I hadn't experienced the same illness or challenges as her but I understood the constrictions and isolation of your life when you are suddenly bereft of good health long term.

Don't worry I will get to the point! in the first 6 months I couldn't work at all. Doing a food shop was a big event for me. Whilst I sat at home on my little sofa , or in my bed staring at the ceiling my mind wandered down many thoughts. I started to play with ideas.I thought , if I can't work I may aswell do something that I love with my time. I think I dropped out of the womb with a pencil in my hand!No Michelangelo but all things crafty and creative make me a very happy woman. After some time of more wandering and being on a limited budget, I began making little box lockets with mini stories inside,("of course,"I hear you murmur). I think I was in part inspired by all the many teenagers flowing in and out of our flat in their many colouful, crazy outfits that were in vogue. The beauty of fashion now is anything goes.

I started my stories, taking up my pen and out of nowhere a whole flood of little tales appeared on the paper. Some stories came from real life ,but alott of the tales just seemed to fall out my head and onto the page. The box lockets I made from old match boxes strengthening them with paper mache. I decorated the lockets with an image on the front related to the story inside. I cut a long strip of paper, match box sized, which I then folded like a concertina so it would neatly fit into the locket. I wrote the stories by hand, often writing and rewriting on the small strips of paper to correct my mistakes. I spent hour upon hour making the paper mache strong but flexible in the right places and painting , smoothing, cutting, glueing everything together ,fitting the loops to hold the box closed. I loved the freedom I had to choose any style to decorate the box. The more I made the more I wanted to make. I felt my little internal creative world was my oyster.

I started to sell the lockets at craft markets. It was a pleasure to see other peoles work and it was always very social, but making a living from hand made box lockets with a tiny story was very niche!They would have gone down a treat on a Zandra Rhodes cat walk,or an art students final show, but not a top of the list purchase to the average bod on the street.Time was another problem with making and selling my little art items. Each locket and story could take several days to make.Time and money did not weigh up.

I started to get a little less pain so I started some employed hours housekeeping and cleaning, as I could choose the hours.I carried on working limited hours ,crawling to work, falling back home ,tidy up the debris of a flood of teenagers, then eat and slump on the sofa. So my life went on and on in a similar way for the next 10 years. I saw less and less people and more of my four walls , but the one thing that ran through everything like a strand of coloured sand in rock were my creations.They have had many incarnations.I made animal lanterns from old oblong packaging. Still on a budget, I used whatever I could salvage from my recycling rubbish bag.It was my little home recycling factory.

I made circular lanterns from card, clipped together with paper clips. I cut out shapes on landscapes to let the light out. The first one I made for my dad was a picture of the fountain on Torquay sea front that my great garandfather designed. The oblong animal lanterns were mostly made from old cracker packets. The parts of the animals would lend themselves to shapes I cut that would stand out and let the light shine through, I painted them in bold bright colours. The first one I made was an owl. I had a voicerecorder left over from another project so I stuck it to the top of the owl and when you pressed the button a squeaky ta-witt-ta -woo would sound. A bit of fun, but not so cheap to make.

I carried on making and creating in between my work hours of scrubbing, wiping, cleaning , mopping and shining.There was a sea of old paints, words, empty cardboard packaging, old birthday and Xmas cards, crayons, felt tips, scissors of all shapes and sizes. I was in my own world of colour,textures, shapes forms and materials. I could bathe in a creative world of no limits, the creator of my own universe. Over these days , months ,years, I was often looking after other people .Soaking myself in my creative land, with a hot water bottle strapped onto my body wherever it hurt, was my salve, my calm, peace and my delight. Sitting at the table, listening to the radio or watching an old film whilst I worked away on whatever I was making was absorbing and fed me body and soul.

Now it's Summer 2021, we are all still living with covid. I'm still sitting at my table, recovering from covid, still loving my time making and creating.I am now making greeting cards with my tiny stories inside. I'm purching on the edge of putting them out into the world, to sell online and other places. None of us know what lies ahead, but one thing is certain, things will change. I hope that I will always have time to wander, open the box of my imagination and create something.With a bit of luck I will go out aswell as coming in ,with a pencil in my hand.