I had a family visitor today, my sister Ann. I wanted her to see the work before the private exhibition. She understood it all immediately. I showed her the cardigan version. My husband Phil, said he didn’t get the cardigan. Ann replied immediately that “It looks like she’s in there, that’s it”. “You’ve been on a journey” she reflected. The loose ends resonated with her. We have lots of them. She spotted the box version, with extrusions from the wall and this led us to sharing our feelings about discomfort in certain places at home as children. Anxious anticipation. She suggested a bright element to the black and white side to represent motherhood, parenting and children. This was strange because someone else had suggested this. However, although motherhood was important to mum I think the NHS nursing cross better reflects her true self, her lost career replaced by marriage and its trappings. From my perspective she unwittingly influenced me to be very independent the exact opposite to herself in marriage.

• 

• 

• 

After Ann left I realised that I had not specifically followed up artists who analyse the concept of trauma. I had explored, for example Louise Bourgois and Tracy Emin who take a lot of influences from childhood. Dorothea Tanning who makes no claims to trauma but her work seems to me to be saying something about the experience of growing up and family life. Then there is Paula Rego – her themes are ownership, use/misuse of power, childhood and sexual harms. So next I read Kulasekara’s essay on Representation of Trauma in Contemporary Arts which was interesting http://www.athensjournals.gr/humanities/2017-4-1-3-Kulasekara.pdf and provided more to think about in the future.