Saturday, September 26, 2009

Memories

I have been listening to old Lloyd Webber musicals lately, but that's not the Memories I have in mind. I was looking through some old photos the other day, and remembered an old photo strip my grandad kept on his pinboard for as long as I can remember. The two of us shared the same quirky sense of humour and we both thought it was hilarious. Sadly the rest of the family never saw it that way, and it has probably ended up in a landfill somewhere after he passed away. I still have an image of it in my mind though, and somehow the idea of recreating it in fabric and thread planted itself in my mind.
The actual photos were of me, at the tender age of four. I have a vague recollection of the day they were taken: My grandparents had just returned from a coach trip to Italy and we were all at the bus station to meet them. There was a lot of hugging, kissing, and high spirits, presents were exchanged and somehow in the midst of all this, someone thought it would be a good idea to let me have my photo taken in the photo booth. Nobody remembered to adjust the seat, and it didn't occur to any of them to explain to me what was going to happen once that little curtain had been closed and I was left alone in the booth. The photos told their own story, like a comic strip: In the first picture you saw just the top of my worried little face; in the next one, blinded by the flash, there I was, eyes wide open and somehow much higher up - I was probably suspended in thin air from the shock...; in the next one, you just saw the back of my head on my way out; leaving an empty booth as the fourth image.
Now I'm not all that good at drawing, but I have made an attempt to recreate the images, like a comic strip with thread sketching. I stitched strips of fabric onto wool felt with white thread to form my background and stitched my sketch with black thread on top. Not perfect, but I think it tells the story the way I intended. Now there is some space left, so I could cut it down to size, or maybe add some kind of caption? Now what would that be? "unprepared", "surprised", "flash" , "tales of the unexpected"... I'm getting sillier and sillier here - any suggestions?

1 comment :

Libby said...

This is so cute, and what a cool story.