An artistic expression of a dying mother
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Mother
There is no other
Like Mother
So treat Her right
Mother
I’ll Always Love Her
My Mother
So treat Her right, treat Her right.Treat Your Mother Right by Mr.T
My mother passed away peacefully at around 6 a.m. on 11/11/2018.
It was aptly Remembrance Day that day.
She was diagnosed with COPD in the year 2000, aged 51 after smoking approximately 60-80 cigarettes a day since she was a teenager.
As a child, I always remember her having a cigarette lit, she was in her dressing gown a lot as she was at home looking after me and also answering the telephone for my dad’s taxi business.
Hearing this news at 51 must have been tough for her. I was 18 at the time and didn’t fully understand what was happening. Obviously, I knew she was ill caused by smoking but it didn’t really hit home.
My mum and I had a trip to Australia a year later to see my Uncle Allen. He moved to Perth WA as a sprightly 21-year-old back in the day. This was when I really started to notice the impact it was having on my mum. We walked a lot over the two weeks I was there.
I strongly recall one day, I was eager to get back to my uncle’s as it was 40 degrees Celsius, a temperate we rarely if ever experience in the UK, so I was chipping it a bit. Racing ahead, I turned back thinking my mum was nearby, but she was about 50 metres behind me, out of breath, wheezing. That’s when it hit home that she was unwell.
To say that I’m proud of her cutting going cold turkey after a lifetime of smoking 60-80 cigarettes a day is the world’s greatest understatement. As soon as she heard the news that she had COPD, she quit there and then.
The years went on, and I finished college and moved out. She seemed okay, she was able to do most things, but walking up the steep hills from our local high street back to the family home was longer possible, so she got the local dial-a-ride bus with her friend Marg.
Years went by, I lived in London from 2007-2014. I probably saw my parents every couple of months. It wasn’t until 2014 when we decided to move closer to home, that the real decline started to occur.
My mum needed to be on Oxygen all of the time. Tethered to a loud, clinical machine at home 24/7. It had an extremely long oxygen tube on it that could go all the way upstairs to her bedroom. When we took trips out she would need 3 or 4 oxygen cylinders and a wheelchair as standard.
My father was deteriorating mentally with dementia on top of my mother’s physical issues. She joked that together they’d make one normal person.
I printed this photo of my mum out and pinned it to the sideboard at my studio. Nearly 5 years later it was my time to face my mother’s death through my art.
I started painting the piece with an £28 paintbrush. I asked Adam Crosland to get me a nice 2inch artist paintbrush, and he got this really fancy one. I wouldn’t normally spend that but it’s become a bit of a favourite for me. I normally get cheap brushes but this one felt luxurious. Like it means more to me, my normal brushes I don’t mind disposing of.
This piece came more easily to me, less effort and less time taken sketching out. I painted a rough outline in brown oil stick on top of a black canvas, then expressively started painting in the details. I enjoy picking colours as I go rather than planning out a colour palette. I often surprise myself with what occurs on the canvas.
Even though I allowed myself the time to grieve at her passing. I faced my mother’s death head-on with this piece.
I try and see the point of view of the observers of my art. Not in terms of how they view my art, but in terms of me documenting my art practice and sharing it with them. Personally, I find it really interesting to see behind-the-scenes footage from artists working in their studios, talking about their backgrounds and what makes them tick.
Just imagine having a library of videos and thoughts from Kahlo, Dubuffet or DiVinci. I know there’s a lot of documentation on these artists, but remember how fortunate we are to have a device on us all the time, that can record voice, take photos and record videos. It’s something we can easily take for granted. They didn’t have the tools we have now.
What I am trying to say: I hope it’s interesting for you to see my art journey documentation. If not, at least I can look back on it all as a kind of diary, or my daughter can look back at what Daddy created.
A short WIP clip of Peace at Last:
A brief explanation of the work at the time: (I’m not sure who I was talking to when I shared this originally). Edit: Ah, I remember, it was in the comments of a Facebook post by Philmy Portraits.
All my best to you,
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