What are heirlooms? The Cambridge dictionary describe them as, “a valuable object that has been given by older members of a family to younger members of the same family over many years.” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2022) However, I believe that the answer to this question will much differ from person to person. We are raised in our own unique ways, that we often look back on with a special fondness or nostalgia. I was posed with this question early on in this line of enquiry: “What do heirlooms mean to you? What do you take from them?” This question has become a keystone – an anchor point – as I develop this working line of enquiry. This body of work began as a means to investigate the origins of my inspiration as a practitioner. What I wanted to develop is a means of responding to this – to explore who my work is meant for. Growing up in the close-knit diaspora of the Caribbean, the women in my family were such a keen source of love, a source of motivation and nostalgia. When I dissect the memories of the women in my family and the sense; I don’t carry with me photos from home or my childhood, relics or artifacts, textiles or otherwise things that my peers around held dearly or featured within their work. My heirlooms are the words of my mother, grandmother, aunt and sister. My heirlooms are the memories of driving past the same ornamental architecture every day, an admiration of iron-wrought gates, a deep-seated interest in times once past. T hese women were keystone figures in my household – they were home-makers. My mother quite literally helped to build and shape the house being built way back in 2002.
I present the tangential narratives of my work – adinkra symbolism and its prevalence in its Trans-Atlantic and colonial presence, ornamental architecture as a means of both visual communication, and the link in my work between post-colonialism, home-making, and Caribbean feminism, and the tension between them; This publication in and of itself serves as an archive - a gathering of my research and reflections. These are archives as places of home, love, and nostalgia.
You may click to view. As a part of my practice, I become quite research heavy. Above, is a compilation of my visual and written research as a supplementary practice to my line of enquiry.
Traditional reflective wriiting, using a typewriter, and the words of the women in my family. These are my hairlooms, I look back on the letters, birthday cards and phone calls with such fondness. I hold and remember their words through all the places I go.
Expetimental traditional type, work in progress images.
Hand molded wax, cast in bronze. Experimenting with the tangential themes of Adinkra, Cayman’s colonial architecture, and symbology as a means of visual communication, alongside my reflective writing.
3D prints in bronze frames. Continuation of develpomental imagery.