Childhood Portraits

30cm x 25cm x 4cm

Description

Folder covered in 1950s curtain fabric with mendings, loose sheet collection of found and family photographs, children's printed and embroidered handkerchiefs. one painted child's bonnet (Netherlands), one knitted baby bonnet (UK)

 

Themes, comments and storylines

 A collection with no particular agenda, just things for the visitor to look at and ponder: photographs, handkerchiefs and hats, images and fabrics of the past that might give rise to memories, thoughts or feelings. There are pictures from my family collection mixed with photographs found abandoned in second hand shops, like those in Transitional Identities. I remember the bedroom curtains, and how when I was ill in bed and not allowed to read but having to rest, the sheer boredom of it all made me invent stories from the curtain pictures: a ball, a car, a bird in a cage, a brick, a girl that became me. So many of our memories are linked to childhood, our own sometimes mingling with that of our children or the childhood tales of our parents or grandparents. In childhood images we can see hopes and fears, anxieties and joys - the children sometimes seems weary as if already carrying burdens still to come. I remember my handkerchiefs, which sometimes I was allowed to iron myself with my toy iron - smooth and folded, crumpled up in the pocket or under the pillow, tear-soaked or chocolate-stained, their images, now faded from frequent washes, contributing their own stories to be imagined.

"Psychologist Michael Ross says that we operate under a presumption of continuity when reconstructing our personal histories. If we believe it now, we believed it then. Or, as developmentalist George Vaillant has put it, once a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, it doesn't remember being a caterpillar; it remembers being a little butterfly." (Kotre 1995:164)

 Kotre, John (1995), White Gloves: How we create ourselves through memory, New York, Free Press

  

"It is the images in stories - not the stories themselves - that children appropriate." (McAdams 1993:55)

 McAdams, Dan P. (1993), The stories we live by: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self, The Guildford Press, New York and London

 

 

“… childhood is certainly greater than reality” (Bachelard 1994:16)

 

Bachelard, Gaston (1994), The Poetics of Space, translated by Maria Jolas, Beacon Press, Boston

 

 

 

 

Every memory is a singular experience, inextricably entwined with the fabrics that hold it, yet not determined by it. A pair of pink pyjamas can mark a happy occasion as well as a sad one.  Between happiness and sadness, there are moments of embarrassment, of helplessness, frustration, fleeting moments yet significant enough to remember, singular yet easy to understand and empathise with.

 

The following childhood memories have been found through keyword searches at BBC Memory Experience

“One of my earliest memories is of the night a garage near us caught fire. I remember sitting on the dining room table being dressed by my mother. It was dark and I was very grumpy. I remember her dressing me in a pair of red tartan trousers and a yellow wool jumper. I hated the jumper because it made me itch.”

 

“Very young (perhaps 12 - 18 months?) in my cot, unable to hear any noise in the house and feeling very afraid of being alone. Calling out for my mother. Eventually, my angry father appeared, shouted, smacked me and left. I cried. I remember particularly the cream paint on the cot, the wallpaper in the room, and my pink flannel pyjamas with little spots on (which may have been small flowers or something similar).”

“I can remember waking up in the middle of the night, standing on my bed and looking out of the window. I was wearing my little pink pyjamas which were my favourite. I was about 5 at the time. The sky was bright and the trees looked very shiny (I think now they were frosty), I couldn't decide if they were on fire. So I went and got my dad to show him, and he came with me. He looked out of the window and told me it was the moonlight shining on the trees. It was a good experience.” 

“An old fashioned pram, a pram blanket with an appliqued animal (lamb?) on one side. I am trying to tell adults that I want the animal side up - or facing a different way - but of course no one understands because I'm too young to talk!” 

“I was wearing a matching cotton hat with a fancy brim, and can remember thinking that I didn't want to wear it, reaching up to pull it off and finding that it was tied on. I couldn't remove it and was briefly cross.” 

“I remember wetting myself during a PE lesson on the gym equipment and being given a horrible pair of spare navy blue knickers from the school to wear home.”

“I remember having to wear home-made clothes until I was 6-7; having an ‘accident’ at nursery school and being put into a pair of girl’s knickers; I remember being an outsider from the time I was pushed into associating with people other than family; I remember being persecuted by my older brother. Did this make me the semi-recluse that I now am?”