destroyed slides, lightboxes + writing (process)

Experiments exploring memory, meaning, materiality, stories, words, shapes and composition in the photographic space.

Stream of conscious writing with the prompt "I remember"...

I remember your salt and pepper hair and the way your moustache made me giggle when I was a kid and you kissed me all scratchy and tickly. I remember your gold tooth and how it flashed when you smiled. I remember the ooh gah horn on the old silver Magna station wagon that embarrassed me when you used to pick me up from swimming training. I remember how much I hated that horn. I remember you used to wear a laplap from PNG around the house. It was orange and black and cotton. I remember your dry sense of humour. I remember you sitting reading in your chair - never newspapers or magazines. You only read books. I remember you in your chair with the mustard valour upholstery and the reading lamp with the gold tassels and I remember the glasses of wine you drank from every day. Never actual wine glasses - brown plastic ones. You would ask me to fill up your glass (just a half glass you’d say) from the cask of sweet wine white in the fridge. I remember you used to drink Spumante from bottles you would buy by the carton. I remember I used to steal bottles on occasion to drink and get drunk with my friends. Then you started drinking moselle. I don’t know why you changed. Maybe I could look back and track the phases of your life by the type of cold, sweet wine you were drinking at the time. Later, much later, it was sweet red wine - Lambrusco. I remember buying it for you from the bottle store and the smell it made as I pressed the plastic nozzle and it poured out the silver balloon into your cup. I remember I used to buy you cigarettes too. I remember I was young, maybe 8 years old when you started sending me to the shops to buy a pack of Alpine menthol filters for you. I remember there was a time when parents could send their kids to do that. Not anymore. I remember sitting in your lap when I was very small cuddling into your chest, one arm holding a book, the other holding a cigarette. I didn’t mind the smell. I loved it. I cuddle in your arms and trace the velour with my fingers - pushing the fibres this way and smooth them down the other way. I remember feeling safe and happy and loved and wanted and special. I remember watching you do things at your desk - fixing old watches, wearing your funny magnifying helmet thing at your desk and squirting and smoking as you squirted oil into tiny screws and wheels and cogs and squirted air with that plastic thing with the bulb on one end and the brush on the other into the back of old clocks. I remember the smell of oil. It was sharp. I remember the smell of dust and old things and how much I loved your shop - stuff piled from floor to ceiling, stuff hidden, mysteries to uncover everywhere. I remember being fascinated by the discovery of hidden things behind other things covered in cobwebs and dirt. I remember you would always give me stuff I wanted from your shop. I remember you would let me read any book I wanted from the shelves. I remember you showing me how to tell if a pearl was real and how to tell the difference between a diamond and a cubic zirconia. I remember how working there affected you. I remember your stress and anger and frustration when the police would come and take away stolen things. I remember all the times you would tell me about your old girlfriends (Helga and Ginny particularly).