Early in 2023 I was very fortunate to receive a Visual Artist & Craft Maker Award – a bursary from Fife Contemporary funded by Creative Scotland designed to support Scotland-based visual artists and craft makers in their creative development. Enabling me to take time to research and produce work outwith my usual practice, the VACMA has funded a project called ‘In My Grandmother’s House’ –
A project about memory, past lives, things lost.
A remembering of a house I spent a lot of time in as a child,
and of the woman who lived there…both long gone.
The house has occupied space in my mind for such a long time, probably because I can never go back there. It exists only in the memory. There are numerous things I associate with the house even now, decades later. It was the place I experienced little firsts – the smell of a greenhouse and pipe smoke, the call of a wood pidgeon. Things which to this day transport me straight back to that time and place…
“Memories such as the ones you formed as children are not easily struck from the mind’s page”
N.D.Wilson
A bit of background:
I should probably give you a little bit of background before we get into it. My Grandma was called Iris Carmichael and she lived at 98 Glasgow Road, Perth in the 1970s in a funeral home called Pitheavlis House. The property was owned by Co-op Funeral Care, and my Step-Grandad Jim was the funeral director there. It was built in the late 19th Century, a stone building similar to other houses in the area. The living accomodation was on the upper two floors, with the chapel and mortuary on the ground floor and the coffin workshop at the side.
The surrounding grounds were substantial with numerous tall trees, including a huge monkey puzzle. There was a large driveway in front of the house and a terraced lawn around the back, with greenhouses and gooseberry bushes down the side. It was a beautiful place and I loved staying there. The house stood for just over a century until it was demolished and replaced with two blocks of flats.
Starting the project, my first steps were to write down my own memories, because I felt I needed to preserve them before going any further with the project. I wanted to learn more about the house itself but I didn’t want my memories altered or diluted by other’s memories or even the reality of it. As it turned out, much of what I remembered was fairly accurate, even though the last time I was there I was only 5 years old.
At the time I lived with my mum, dad and sister over 60 miles away in Motherwell, and in the days before the motorway and dual carriageway, the car journey to Perth was long, through villages and towns. Visits were mostly during the school holidays, but in 1974 my mum had a prolonged stay hospital and with my dad working shifts in Glasgow, me and my sister Ceri were sent to stay with Iris and Jim.
Being so young I really don’t remember too much about my Grandma, besides being a little scared of her – she was quite stern and didn’t stand for any nonsense. She was in her late forties/early fifties when I knew her, but seemed older. She often wore a head scarf, with her salt and pepper hair set and styled underneath. She took her own life when she was 54 years old.
I have clearer memories of Grandad Jim, a pipe smoker who wore 1960s style half-rim spectacles and a three-piece suit. He was lots of fun, took me and my sister to the park and drove us around in his hearse. But he brought another woman to my grandma’s funeral, and we never saw him again after that day. Disappearing with him were a number of Grandma’s possessions which were promised to us, which leads me on to…
Experiments and finished pieces:
I was keen to take a step outside my usual practice with this project, and experiment with new techniques and materials. If you know my HooperHart work, you’ll know it’s mostly miniature wooden scenes inside frames and boxes. At the start I had no idea what form any finished pieces would take, and I did kind of expect there to be a diorama in there somewhere… but I wanted to let the subject, the research and the tools available to me guide the project to where it needed to go.
Each piece has elements created using the facilities at the Famous Grouse Ideas Centre in Perth Creative Exchange; my time there heavily influenced the work – sharing my research and ideas with Scott (the technologist at FGIC) led to many valuable conversations about how the technology could assist me, which in turn would spark more ideas and lead me off down an another avenue.
Inspiration for the four finished pieces also came directly from objects I remember seeing around my Grandma’s house – a jewellery box, a pocket book, a framed picture, a glass ornament. As all these things were lost to us after she died, these are artefacts reimagined…
Glasshouse:
UV printed glass
As I mentioned, the greenhouses in the garden loom large in my memory – I’ve been attracted to glasshouses ever since. I remember being fascinated by my Grandma’s glass ornaments, in particular a shepherd’s crook made from twisted glass. When I think of the interior of the house it is always the colour blue that comes to mind.
Taking inspiration from photographs of the wallpaper in my grandma’s living room, I created a repeat pattern which I then printed onto clear glass using FGIC’s UV printer.
Experiments with patterns and colours
Putting the glasshouse together – with the help of Lorna from Catriona Studios
Pocket Book:
UV printed acetate & paper
This little book contains all my memories, each page illustrated with a composite image made using pictures from my grandma’s box of photographs and documents – layers of a life. I printed the cover for the book onto paper and the images onto acetate, both using the UV printer.
Along the way I also tried printing the cover pattern on glass and brushed aluminium – both turned out really well…something to return to in the future…?
Wooden Box:
Giclee concertina print with UV printed acetate
Looking for photographs of the house I happened to come across a cardboard box containing photos and papers from my Grandma’s earlier life when she was a young mother. It was a fascinating insight into her life with my Dad and Lewis – her first husband and my Grandad.
I remember a jewellery box – I picture it on a dressing table on the attic landing, diffused light from a skylight and pink floral wallpaper on the walls. The concertina within the box documents my grandma’s life with Lewis, including the marriage certificate, divorce papers, an affadavit signed by Lewis accepting responsibility for my Dad and Grandma as ‘aliens’ – immigrants to the U.S.
Iris was 20 years old when she married Lewis, who was a corporal in the American Airforce stationed in Scotland during World War 2. After the war my Grandma and my newly arrived Dad followed Lewis back to his home state of Washington to start their new life…which ended with their divorce being finalised in 1952.
I was intrigued by how my Grandma looks so different in the photographs from her ‘American’ life compared to those from her Scottish life…possibly because back home a camera was unaffordable for the family at that time, and the only pictures taken were on special occasions, posed and formal. I’d also never seen my Dad as a wee boy.
Framed Picture:
Original photographs, UV printed glass
When I started this project I expected the sole focus to be on my Grandma’s time at Pitheavlis House; however finding the box of photos made me think about her life as a young woman, and how a war set her on a path she could never have predicted. I thought about my Dad’s early life, the place he lived in, the friends he had, his little dog…and how he felt having to leave them behind when he returned to Scotland with Iris.
In the box of documents I found these incredibly evocative photographs from that time, taken in the Pacific North-West and dating from 1947-1952. They are such beautiful little pictures with crinkly edges…they tell a story of time and a place so well, I didn’t want to alter them in any way. So I decided to simply mount them in a frame and that way I could always have them on display.
So in the end the project became a commemoration of my Grandma and her life. Prior to this I knew so little about her – when it came to his parents, my Dad was extremely taciturn…I now realise that it was likely a source of emotional pain for him. But I’d like to bring things back to where I began –
The House:
Back at the beginning of this project I emailed Co-op Funeral Care on the off-chance they would have some information on the house – at this point I did not know what it was called or what it actually looked like. Within five minutes of emailing I received a phone call from one of the Co-op’s funeral directors, Helen Russell. I told her about the project and she gave me some snippets of information about the house…and then told me she was the last person to live there!
Needless to say I was completely stunned and extremely excited by this. Helen agreed to meet me in person to talk about her memories of the house. She lived there from 1999-2002 – the house was owned by another company by then (it was my good fortune that Helen now happens to work for Co-op Funeral Care or I would never have met her).
During our chat I learned about her fascinating life as Perth’s first female funeral director; we talked about her memories and how they compared to mine, and about how much she and her children loved living there. She very kindly gave me photographs she took of the house – the first time I had seen it in 45 years.
I hadn’t had any real memories of what the house looked like from the outside, just the interior and surrounding grounds. I had a vague recollection of a tall and turretted Victorian villa, but this was clearly a false memory influenced by the other buildings on the same street – buildings that I now drive past most days…and needless to say as a 5 year old I remember it as being much bigger!
Seeing the house sparked many emotions, not least sadness that it no longer exists in the world. But even if it still stood at 98 Glasgow Road, it wouldn’t the house I remember. That place has only really ever existed in my memory, so it will always be there for me visit.
The project’s finished pieces will be on display at Perth Creative Exchange as part of a group show until June 13th 2024.
Grateful thanks to Fife Contemporary and Creative Scotland who made this project possible; to Scott Russell and Lorna Radbourne for their technical expertise; and to Helen Russell, my sister Ceri and Auntie Val for sharing their memories with me.
HooperHart 