 April 2009 | Kitchen utensils provide an intriguing insight into local cuisines. In Singapore, I loved the large wire mesh colanders used for draining noodles and the flat spoon for scooping out tofu.
I wanted to create a series of work using local kitchen utensils. April 2009 pieces reflect that - an ink drawing of the mesh colander and a bamboo pick wrapped up in soft green wool. I remember being keen to create a body of work that connected me specifically to Singapore.
I unraveled the green wool from the bamboo pick and stitched it onto tracing paper. The shape reminded me of a boundary, of inside and outside.
In order to accept differences of any kind, one has to be flexible about their boundary. I hope mine will always be flexible like the shape drawn by the green wool.
|  'Boundary', wool, cotton, tracing paper, 19 December 2013 |
March 2009
| A painting of three ‘hyotan’ (gourds) for March 2009. Hyotan is a symbol of good luck in Japan. I don’t think the work has any particular connotations of good luck but I remember using a lot of ‘Japanese’ images in my works I was making at that time. Hyotan probably caught my eyes as something that looked very traditionally Japanese.
I replaced the three hyotan with three boxes, hiding one of the box behind the tracing paper.
I am getting quite good at using the half transparent tracing paper as a screen. I like the way it hides and reveals things at the same time.
It reflects my situation here too – kind of here but not really. Neither here nor there. It’s ok though. I am not complaining.
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'Three Boxes', watercolour, watercolour paper, tracing paper and crayon, 18 December 2013
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February 2009
| Cutting out paper is a therapeutic process, similar to stitching. Different cultures have different paper cutting art. I saw a lot of Chinese paper cutting designs in Singapore, especially at Chinese New Year time.
Japan has Monkiri paper cutting. February 2009 work shows my attempt at this combined with black ink stain. And boxes! What is it with boxes? They appear in many of my works.
Repetitive pattern taken from traditional Japanese paper were cut out from the tracing paper. This acted as a screen for my current work. The stacked boxes hover behind the ornate, half transparent screen and also stand autonomously, on its own. Containing what? Why are they here? Are they waiting to be sent off or to be unpacked?
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'Stacking (boxes)', tracing paper and graphite, 17th December 2013
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| | It is currently December and everywhere is decked out with Christmas decoration. Singapore does Christmas very well too. More glitzy and commercial than here. Maybe the work for December 2008 reflected this - a collection of shiny sequins in a small plastic bag.
January 2009 work was a small piece of clay with lace imprint. The square pieces were used for a group of small houses I was constructing. The houses looked and were more flimsy than the straw house in ‘The Three Little Pigs’.
I remembered the little houses. For me, the construction of the little houses and trying to make them stand was a matter of serious importance.
Whether they are little clay walled houses stuck together with PVA glue or the brick and mortar job, a house is a house. There is something fundamental about wanting to build your own house.
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'The House I Wanted to Make', watercolour and mixed media on paper, 13 December 2013
work created from Dec 2008 pieces, 13 December 2013
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 October/November 2008 | A recipe for sesame seed dressing and olive rice were included in the October/November 2008 art works. I had tried olive rice in the food court recently and had found it rather nice. I probably wanted to share the recipe with Orah.
With the recipes were the drawings. One of a house covered in speckled wax and the other, a photocopy of an art piece I had made for a postcard exhibition I was taking part in which I had then made into a collage.
The sesame seed dressing, I still make quite often. Even here, back in Winchester. Olive rice, I really should try. I can get hold of all the ingredients.
It is over 3 months since I have been back. Things are ticking over. I was able to look through Mrs Lee's cookbook recently without feeling dejected but more with a sense of nostalgia.
What does this mean? Am I getting used to being here? Am I feeling more 'at home'? But where is home when memory keeps changing its shape?
When does a house become a home? |  10 December 2013  11 December 2013 |
September 2008
| Life must have been carrying on as usual in Singapore. No mention of any catastrophe or major set backs in the letter sent to Orah.
A small work with squiggly line drawing of a house covered in melted wax and the words 'come in from the rain' was my piece for September 2008. I like how wax makes paper translucent.
A house is generally understood as a protective space, a place where shelter and warmth are provided. But a house hidden by melted wax is difficult to find, although the words ask you to come in from the rain.
Today it was dense fog outside. I have hidden the house behind this dense fog. I am still trying to find it. |
09 December 2013
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August 2008
| I have always been fascinated with images of 'working hands', particularly in the domestic context. The work I sent to Orah in August 2008 was an image of a hand assembling a cake.
There is something about a busy, creative hand at work. It is very spiritual, yet real. That combination fascinates me.
My mother has great hands. Always clever and busy. Louise Bourgeois' has great hands too. So does Picasso.
I stitched over the hands assembling the cake. I wanted my hands to be doing something busy too. |
06 December 2013
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July 2008
| We visited Winchester in July 2008. Orah organized a get together for us and one of the dishes she prepared was a salad made of beautiful purple leaves and orange and yellow Nasturtiums she was growing in her allotment. The dish looked dazzling like summer squeezed on to one plate.
My mother used to grow Nasturtiums. I never knew they were edible.
I cut up up the photo of 'Orah's Allotment Salad' into tiny little squares and reassembled them. I was not trying to reconstruct the memory but more like making it into something completely different. Now that I am here, I don't need the actual image. It can be pushed back to a place where I can tap in now and again to feel the warmth of that summer day.
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04 December 2013
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