First Book

This is the first Book I have made that includes some of the stories I have gathered through the Blog, through interviews and through the socially engaged meal I organised.  The Book is completely hand crafted.  I made my own book cloth, bound it myself and created this particular aesthetic.  It was used in an installation for college and a group crit.  For the installation I presented the book on a poufe in front of two armchairs that belonged to my late Grandparents.  I also had headphones attached to one armchair which played clips of different people I have interviewed talking about their meaningful objects.  Overall the installation was very successful and I got some interesting feedback.

Images from my installation in the College

Hat

This is my dads hat. He died in 1986. I haven't always had it with me. But in the last ten years I kept it in my press.  Anyway have kept it with me for the last ten years or so as I've moved around. it's a small reminder of him and what I lost.

Smelly Nelly

My meaningful object is my doll called “Smelly Nelly”, ehm, my Mam bought her when we lived up in an apartment down in Tullamore. Eh, down the road from a toy shop because we lived with my aunt Elaine. She had a doll called “Gaga” and I kept playing with it and I thought she was mine. So then my Mam bought me “Smelly Nelly”.

Ehm, we named her “Smelly Nelly” because she has a really nice smell and, ehm, when my Mam was over in Bolivia there was a nun there called Nelly and she was really nice. So my Mam decided to call her Nelly after her.  And I’ve had Nelly since I was two and I keep her on this wooden chair in the corner of my room. 

Easter Photo

My most meaningful object, one which I have carried with me through all the years, is a photograph of my father and myself when I was less than six months old holding my very first Easter egg.

At the time Easter eggs were hand made, they weren’t the usual variety that you can buy in the shop. My name was on it and my father is holding me, holding the egg which is nearly the same size as myself. I’ve always treasured this photograph as this coming sunday, the 22nd of February, my father will be 50 years dead.

He was a very good father and I miss him very, very much and frequently look at this picture just to see him, and even though I was only very, very small I just could feel a bond in the picture between the two of us. I will always treasure this photograph and at the moment I am doing some work on my ancestry and it was one of the first pictures to go up on my website.

Rings

My meaningful object is my claddagh ring. My boyfriend, Paul, bought it for me about 11 years ago in a shop in Athlone. Ehm, he had bought me a Claddagh necklace when we were going out three months and it had a green stone in it. So when we saw the Claddagh ring with the green stone, he bought me that as well. The green stone? He was just attracted to it when he saw the necklace in the jeweller’s. It’s not my birthstone but it’s a colour now that I love. So I had it for 10 years and my daughter used to take it and sleep with it at night if she had night mares and, ehm, or if she’d ask me for my ring so that she could sleep with it and felt closer to me so I let her have it, and because it was too big for her I put it on a necklace, on a chain. So she wore this to school one day and then to crèche and I was in work and I got a phone call from my sister saying the ring had fallen off the chain. It was now a square shape and she, my sister, knew that I would be upset. She didn’t want me to get upset with my daughter because she was very upset as to what had happened to the ring. So I was very upset when I  had heard that it was broken and there was nothing we could do to fix it. But I went back out to the car with a big smile on my face and I didn’t let my daughter see how upset I was because it was an accident that couldn’t have been prevented. She had minded it very, very carefully, it was just the chain had broken. So for our 11th anniversary last August my boyfriend replaced the ring in Galway in the Claddagh Ring in Galway. They only sell Claddagh rings, beautiful shop, so he bought me one of them. It’s a much daintier one to the one that he originally got me. There’s little diamonds now on the side; very, very pretty.

And my daughter really wanted one aswell. And because I didn’t really like to give her my ring, because of what had happened before, I’d only let her wear it at night time. So, ehm, for her 8th birthday last month we decided to get her her own Claddagh ring. So I didn’t tell her I was going to buy her a Claddagh ring but I let her look at Claddagh rings and she chose her favourite colour, which was the ruby ring, again it’s not her birthstone, but it’s a colour that she was attracted to. So we bought her her own Claddagh ring, which is very like the first one I had except her’s is red and mine is green. And she loves it. She wears it on her index figure which is quite unusual, I find, but, eh, the ruby represents, eh, eternal love, which is what her mammy and daddy feel for her. And she loves it and she doesn’t wear it all the time because she’s afraid to lose it, so she takes it off and she puts it on top of our microwave because Mammy and Daddy can keep an eye on it there and she knows where it is so when she comes in from school she’ll take it down from the microwave. And when we go for a swim that’s the only time I take off my ring and I place it on the microwave beside hers. And they are our meaningful objects.

Eva (7)

I have this bag, it’s “Frozen”, ehm, my auntie; she had this friend and she made this bag and she gave it to me as a present, and ehm, I really like “Frozen” because, ehm, my favourite person in it is Elsa. And I like Elsa because she has magical powers.  So ehm, oh, it has my name on it and, ehm, and ehm, my auntie’s friend made it with drawings and stuff like that on the bag and, ehm, I think her name is Anna something...

And I’ll keep it in my room over on my, ehm, shelf and there it will be safe so that I can always go and look at it and it’s really, really, really nice to me and I like that it has a picture of Olaf and Elsa and, and ‘cause I like them and I like that it has my name on it aswell.  I got it yesterday...

Gaga

My meaningful object that I couldn’t be parted with is my doll “Gaga”.  I received “Gaga” on the 27th November 1981, the day I was born.  My dad bought her for me.  She came everywhere with me, we never parted for the first 14 years of my life.  Apart from whenever she had to get her body, eh, “fixed” because she had been hugged so much.

Eh, I keep this doll, since I gotten married I’ve moved up to Derry and I keep this doll in my house. As I’ve said I couldn’t be parted from it.  If I have children of my own in the future of course they’ll be allowed to play with her, but she’ll always be my doll.

Necklace

The necklace was a present from my Mam. She gave it to me on my graduation day, September 10th 2014. On the front it has my name in Greek letters and on the back, the year of my graduation in Roman numerals representing my area of study, Ancient Greek and Roman civilization. She knew I had a great love of Ancient Classics, I absolutely love my necklace.

Green Stone

This is my item I brought, it’s a green stone, it’s been handed down through generations from my fathers side.  I think it’s eight generations so far that it’s gone through.  Every generation it goes to the youngest person and every generation has to take a piece off and make something from it and then you hand it down to the next generation.  And because the youngest in my family was actually my sister who passed away and then it was handed to me.  And this will be handed down to whoever is next in the family line.  And it means a lot to me and I wouldn’t go anywhere without it.  I brought it from New Zealand and it will stay with me until I’ve handed it down to the next generation.

Do you know how big the piece was in the beginning when it started?

I was told it was about that size (gestures with hands)  when it started.  And it was first cut by hand, it was actually taken from a part of my fathers land or his families land,sorry, and it’s been handed down ever since ...so...

Do you know what any of your ancestors made with their pieces?

Oh they were all necklaces eh, my fathers was a teardrop just handed down to the very first son of the family or the child of the family, which I lost in the end.  His grandfather and his father made....They’re called pounamus but he had made hand sort of weapons, that we used to use in the old ern times.  And the one before that ehm I think it was a necklace, a ring has been made out of it and something else.... I can’t remember.

And what are you planning on making out of it?

....Bits....I don’t know to be honest with you.  That is supposed to come to you. 

And do you have to be involved in the making of something or....?

It has to be made by you.

Oh...ok...

And nobody else, you can get a hand to cut it of course but I have to make it myself.

Oh that’s very interesting.

So you have to carve whatever item you want..

And that goes to the oldest person in the family that piece.

And the cut off?

And the cut off goes to the youngest so if you were born in between...Hard Luck!..No if you were born in between you get bits and pieces from it, really everybody gets a little piece.

It’s lovely, it would be great if you could get all the pieces lined up, that’s like a time line within itself.

Oh a lot of it has been lost...family has moved.

It’s a lovely colour.

Beautiful colour, when it’s actually cut that’s eh 40 years that hasn’t been cut, but it’s pure green.  When it’s cut and shiny. 

When it’s cut and polished

Beautiful, that’s my piece and I’d never leave without it.

Baby hospital bracelet

I keep this in my wallet, I put it into the spot where my ID should go so that I can see it through the plastic window.  It went in when I was waiting to leave the hospital with him.  My son was a much longed for baby and even though I went through the 9 months of carrying him it was still wonderfully shocking the moment they place your baby into your arms.  Because Loki came early he was taken away to the Neonatal unit and while I was sitting with him his baby tag kept falling off as he was so tiny.  This was the first piece of writing that said I had a baby boy that I saw, and because I was still in a kind of daze I kept reading and re-reading it as though to confirm that it was really real.

Aberdeen Towel

This is my object.  It's fairly battered now but that's because it's coming close to about 20 years old. When I was about to leave for university in Glasgow my Grandmother gave me it.  This is an Aberdeen football club towel.  My brother got at the same time an Aberdeen hat but that's because he wasn't going anywhere and my Granny thought that it might not be wise for me to walk about Glasgow with a symbol of Aberdeen on it.  But at that stage Aberdeen were so shite that nobody really cared I walked around with a t-shirt on and all you got was a look of pity.  So that's gone to Glasgow for 4 years and then back home, and then when I came over here in 2000, so it's 14 years.....19.....yeah it's probably about 20, more than 20 odd years old, and now because of its present state and it's just wrecked, it has become the dogs towel for wiping his feet dry when he comes in from the back so it's still in use because I don't think.....well I could be mean.....it's still got the badge so I would feel bad about throwing it out.  So that's my object.

Well at least it’s functional.  And let’s face it when he comes in after the rain it’s our most treasured object.

Instead of getting it all over my trousers.

Was it your idea that the towel be used for...

Oh yes, yeah because it’s my towel.  All her towels are huge, fluffy ones and all mine are all shite, cheap ones.

Plus the eh bromance with the dog!

Well it’s just sandpaper now you wouldn’t dry with that now, it’s just grrrrruup!

Yeah it’s crunchy

Crunchy yeah

There’s nothing worse than a crunchy towel.

Some are for drying and some are for ‘drying’.

Honey Bunny

This is Honey Bunny and I have had him since I was one.  My parents always let us choose our first Teddy Bear when we were about one.  And apparently we were in Mosney on holidays, I went into a shop and there were loads of Teddy Bears.  He was the only Bunny and he was on the top shelf and they were trying to pawn me off with something else, but I just wanted him.  So Honey Bunny has always been there.  He’s come on holidays with me, been halfway around the world.  Yeah he always goes in my hand luggage apart from the last time I went to America when I said  I would put him in my suitcase, which I did and Honey Bunny ended up in Australia.  So he’s been there and I haven’t.

Picture

I’ve just brought this item, it’s a picture of the village I grew up in because my parents lived there for like 40 years and they don’t anymore.  So my mum gave me this picture, oh about 10 years ago and  I don’t have anything else left of the village and I’ll probably never go there again because they live miles away now.

So what I have done is I’ve brought this picture because it just has something to remind me of the village I suppose.  Their house isn’t in it but that’s the kind of crossroads in the village.....ehm I don’t really have any stories about it unfortunately but eh that’s kind of the main thing that I have that I wouldn’t want to be separated from.

Brownies Book and Toadstool

So here’s my item that is memorable to me.  It’s actually two items, but they kind of are linked together.  I was in the Brownies when I was a child and I absolutely LOVED, LOVED being in the Brownies.  That’s why I've kept my things from the Brownies.  This was my copybook, it said my name Alison and my address and age 8, 9, 10 and obviously I didn’t continue with it beyond that. But ehm I just love looking back through all of the little pictures that I drew when I was that age, and actually, looking back through it I didn’t realise how much we talked about God in the Brownies.

But nearly every page has something got to do with God and little pictures from magazines that we had cut out, and oh, it’s just so cute that we thought God was amazing......Thank you God for the weather......Thank you God for my bed.  And there is a picture of my Mam and Dad in their youth, and my Mam wrote “Alison set the table every day”, because we obviously  were told that we had to do special things at home.  But anyway it wasn’t really even about that, it’s just I loved being in the Brownies and I eventually became the leader of my group which was called a sixer, and I kept the neatest roll book for my group and because of that I won my own Toadstool and I still , I lost the door off of it but I still have my Toadstool and the box that it came in.  But it was very, very, very exciting to witness.  I remember all the other girls being very jealous that I had this and ehm actually in my school copies around the time when I was in the Brownies... Everyday for my news was ‘my news, today is Monday , I have Brownies tomorrow night'.  And then on Tuesday ‘My news, today is Tuesday, I have Brownies tonight’.  And then on Wednesday ‘I was at Brownies last night’.  Then Thursday was ‘I can’t wait for Brownies next week’.  So I always had news when I was in the Brownies.  If only life could be so simple now.