10 Mother

Mother, a self-portrait 2008
Bronze h50 x w30 x d21cm

The life of an expat can be exciting, but it can also be very lonely as, with each move, saying goodbye to friends becomes more and more difficult.

The thrill of discovering a new place soon loses its veneer of glamour as the reality sets in: placing your children into yet another new school and trying to reassure their understandable fears of not finding a friend; learning how to drive on the other side of the road; how to find the school, the doctor, the hospital and the supermarket.  It all takes its toll, especially when you don’t yet speak the language.  And then, just as you think you’ve got the hang of it, off you go again to some new place.  The cycle begins anew.

The cardboard box became a symbol of moving for me, unpacking into a new house and starting again.  It underlined that state of instability, impermanence, and of not belonging.  For my children, I became the one thing in their lives that was constant.

1999 heralded divorce and one final move back to England.  This allowed the four of us, and the dog, to finally stay put.  I kept one cardboard removal box from that final move, for storage.  This box became a work of art, with its transformation firstly into a cardboard house, and then subsequently its burning out and resurrection to become a bronze house.

At last, a sense of permanence, a sense of belonging and roots for my children; me, a mother a home a house.

This sculpture doesn’t even try to look like a head, although positioned on its plinth in my garden it does hint at the human form.  It was very much influenced by the wonderful painting, etchings and deceptively simple sculptures of Louise Bourgeois, who often used the fusion between human body and architecture to make her point.  She inspired my own use of the metaphor of head/house/home for this sculpture.  I must admit, I found it very cathartic to burn the legacy of the cardboard box into oblivion, and to welcome it in its new bronze form.