www.homesouls.com The secret of home
Shellie reminds me that her three year old son will be present on the day that I visit, and asks; does this matter? On the day, and in the true spirit of a three year old, he makes his presence know to me. I know that whatever grand, or deep, or big ideas that we might have, our children will always bring us back to the present.
I ask Shellie to choose a window: “It is difficult to choose between them – one in the attic – our child free space where we do our work….. normally a place where I am contemplating objects yet there is a lot going on outside, so I am always aware of sounds and people and cars outside – but I am doing my work…. And the one in the back room; this is where I sit myself when I am doing my sewing….. I am seeing the changes here – dramatically/drastically here…… I define my work as; drawing, textiles, and making – The materiality of meaning that comes through these.”
“I always end up taking stuff from here up to the attic window to contemplate it.”
At the attic window, the objects she made were inspired by the shape of the arch window, although miniaturised. Her intention is to place these objects on a mirror, that; “they are only ever complete when there is a reflection underneath them.”
I tell her that my role is simply to mirror what she says to me, and I will do something very significant; that whatever she says to me about her home, I will repeat to her as a statement about her life.
I ask her to look out the window and tell me what she sees: “The view sums up Uplands in Swansea, it is a real mix of people – students and residents…. A sense of meaning that there is a real hive of people, and meaning, and architectural perspectives – an honest reflection; it feels quite real.”
I note down everything that she says – I note that she has used the word ‘Hive’, and I see that there is a dead Bee in a box beneath the window. I ask her about the bee. It died there 2 days before; “I saw that Bee had died – such a beautiful thing. It kind of sums up our existence. It felt symbolic or significant that it should sit there now”.
I ask her whether she realised that she used the word ‘Hive’ in the context of where she is living. That word and the bee would have past unnoticed, if I had not reflected upon it – Often we have blind spots, we do not see what is closest to us, and we do not here the echo of our own words. She added: “being in this place I feel that when I am sat here I have got this window to the world, being in the middle of something, but also being alone”
What strikes me about Shellie’s house is the absence of artwork on the walls; the walls are stripped bare and left blank, not so much as a blank canvas waiting for surface pattern or decoration to be applied, but with more intention; white paper sheets cover the walls in places like a patchwork quilt, concealing an exploration into colour that prompts some future choices to be made. Then this focuses my attention to the windows – by contrast, these are detailed places – places of more attention.
I offered the abstract: The Bee – to be – being. And she said:
“Being a part of something – doing work is doing life – embracing those moments when you are in that space” – ‘To be’. The attic window is her being space. And what a gift the humble Bee brought to that space, and to that view.
My next conversation was with Caroline at the Mission gallery – This hive of people; the citizens, the peeps, create a rich tapestry – What if we were to close the downtown area for just one day, and give the office workers a coloured thread to go home with, connected at one end to their office place. Give the shop workers another colour and the shoppers one too. And what of the homeless and the street people, let’s give them a coloured thread; attach their threads to their starting place at the dawn of day, then take an aerial view to map their paths – How much might this tell us about the city; about the lines and threads that we never see, about the interconnections, proximities, and commonalities that route our daily lives, that connect one citizen to another?
Let me know if you think this is a good idea. Lindsay Halton
www.homesouls.com
CIVIC 