Keepsake, 2024

Acrylic on Canvas

‘Keepsake’ visualises items which have belonged to influential women in my life and explores concepts of hand-me-downs and memories within objects.

My family & I moved into my grandma’s old house when I was 12. Instead of clearing out the house, they basically kept all of my grandmother’s stuff. However, the house was already full, as my grandmother inherited items from her sisters and other family members as they passed away. This has made it so that my parent’s house is a place of memories and people who once were. 

The items chosen for this piece are ordinary, things found in piles in storage or scattered in old drawers. But the memory within these items, who they belonged to, where they came from, is of such great worth. 

I think of my mother and her family collecting rare shells from beaches, listening to different cassettes, the ever growing piles of sewing needles in my grandma’s sewing room, dolls that were made and given. I feel thankful that everything passed down through friends, sisters, family, have ended up in one glorious place.