I enjoy drawing objects, and usually want to find out more about them. If it is a building or in nature, out somewhere I am visiting. I am curious about context, history, and what it is. I also often draw objects at home. Some are part of a family history project and have come from my childhood. They are HERE in my Flickr album. I love to find the story about when the object was acquired and how and when it was used. I like to find out other family members’ memories of the object. It is amazing that the memories of one object are different for different people. Or they don’t remember it at all, and I thought it was important.

A recent small project made me approach this from a different angle. I had to think a bit more, imagine a lot and I now have more questions than answers. This time I was drawing from someone else’s memory.

It started with one-liner.   My mum mentioned that when she was little she had a bird catching box in the yard. It involved a box and a piece of string. NOTE: no birds were ever caught doing this.

I drew the idea on the next letter I sent. Mum was surprised by it and said I had the box just right – but she was lying down, not sitting down.

I tried again with version two then three

Her comments were that she definitely had bare feet – no shoes and socks. So I drew the one with pointy toes and was told it would not have been pointy toes, I looked a lot online to find a person lying down without pointy feet, and I tried to imagine myself in that position.

It then got me asking my mother lots of questions, and made her think. She also asked her brother and sisters about their recollections and brought back memories for them, and was a conversation starter.

I had hoped to build up a picture by mentioning the senses and hoping they might trigger something – Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste, and Touch.

I asked how old was she and therefore what house and town were they in.

What would she have been wearing? how was her hair done?. Did a young girl wear shorts at that time? We only had a few posed photos of the family at that time, all dressed up.

Memory is a funny thing, it is hard to pin down, I tried it myself. Sometimes a photo is the only thing to base a memory.

Even if we did not get the details down on paper, it was a fascinating discussion and I learnt a lot about my mum’s childhood.