What next.

I am thinking about re-exhibiting my textile and drawings as I think they need another outing. I am applying for a few venues and will do some more work. I also want to write my mother’s biography.

How about this for starters?

"As a young girl I thought it was special that my mother was born in China. I grew up with the images of another culture. My grandparents’ home was exotic and was filled with exquisite Chinese furniture, textiles, screens and pottery. During Christmas holidays I would lie on the richly textured Tientsin carpet fingering the ornate carvings of the low wooden tables and listen to my mother and aunts talk about long days at the beach, the parties, the clothes.

My grandmother was born in Tientsin (now Tianjin) China and as a child in the spring of 1900 was a reluctant participant in a backlash against foreigners which was to become known as the Boxer Rebellion. My grandfather was a Carpet Manufacturer and met and married my grandmother in the British Concession of Tientsin in 1919. My mother was born in 1922 and lived in Tientsin with her parents, two sisters and brother until the ravages of war forced the family to flee the country and her grandfather to be interred as a war prisoner.

My mother did not talk very much about her life in China when I was young but I used to pour over her exquisite embroidered jewellery box and the richly textured photo album and the images began to infiltrate my life. It is now hard to formulate reality from the reflections or dreams of the past. Were they dreams or stories? I recall it as a fantasy of orient and adventure, while my mother saw it as just her life.

But this story starts much earlier……….."