Growing up in the home of an artist is a fate that is colourful to say the least. Coming out of a perpetual state of mess may sound like torture to the more organised counterparts of society, but now living independently, I take comfort in clutter. Some may call my mother a hoarder. It is true that the TV shows depicting similar lifestyles felt close to our own nest. Still, despite continual moves by her to organise, it is when the house is in disarray that it feels at its best to me. A portrait of an artist’s home stems out of the idea of creating snippets not only into the private space of a creative, but also into their artistic process. When I was younger, friends would be equally mesmerised and horrified at the things they found in my house. Amongst jars of hair, family photos and limbs of mannequins are a great many stories telling the history of not only myself and my mother, but the generations of artists preceding us. Returning home is like returning to markers of my childhood, carefully placed to trigger memory. I can reminisce about the time that my mother dragged a fallen branch from a nearby park back on her bike, before getting stuck halfway up the stairwell with it, and having to saw it in half in order to claim it as her own. I very much doubt that another space will ever feel as reassuring as the lovingly collected accumulation of belongings that never particularly changes, but certainly grows with time.
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