In June 2019 Tom, my hubby, and I took part in the E17 Art Trail, an art festival happening in East London, where locals open their houses / studios / galleries / shops and invite people in to see their creative work.
My studio was in Hackney at the time, so I couldn't invite people to an open studio. It meant I could either open my home, or get a local shop or gallery to host me. If you know me well, you know I struggle to 'Sell Myself' to others. I approached one shop that turned me down, and in the end I talked Tom into doing it at our home.
I cannot remember exactly when I read the festival's open call. As I had given birth to my second baby mid-January 2019, I can only assume I saw it when the baby fog started clearing out. Probably sometime around February 2019.
I know what you're thinking: why take on an art festival with a newborn and a toddler? Here's why: the thought of not doing anything creative during my maternity leave was harder. Creativity and design has been my lifeline, sorry for the cliché, but I genuinely think art saved my life.
Creating an art installation was a first for me, and we had lots of restrictions, which I think actually helped form the concept. The budget was small, the space was tight, I couldn't use my studio, and as the deadline was approaching fast I couldn't really develop any new products.
In addition, both Tom and I felt that our living room didn't have much to offer people. We were also far from the exciting-artsy area of Walthamstow (central Walthamstow & The Village were it). So I knew that whatever we chose to do had to have a wow factor. A venue that would get people talking and spreading the word.
I decided to wrap every item in the living room in white paper. Which would mean we would let people into our space but we would also keep it somewhat hidden.
Tom, being the creative musician he is, decided to add a sound installation. In the months running up to the event he recorded us in the house - talking, singing, hanging out. He also found bits of other recordings that felt relevant to the project.
The result meant that when you came into our living room you would be invited to experience something of us, of what we left there, before we wrapped it all away. Visitors were invited to experience echoes of our life without truly seeing it. We hid the layers of colours and textures away and kept them to ourselves, leaving just a skeleton, or the ghost of our living room for you to see.
And so for 3 months Tom recorded and I wrapped, trying to prioritise the stuff we used least, leaving the sofa, dining table and armchair unwrapped so we could still use them.
We got to the deadline exhausted, had a big argument a couple of days before, and I'm pretty sure Tom was questioning the whole idea of taking part. And to add insult to injury, the day before the opening our roof started leaking. The wrapped armchair got wet, and we had no choice but to call our landlord who sent in a builder to have a look. I swear when he saw the living room all wrapped in white paper he thought we had lost our minds. Luckily, he saw the panic in my eyes, got a big ladder and shifted a misplaced roof tile which fixed the issue for the duration of the festival.
And the rest is history. The festival was a success - when people heard there was a living room all wrapped in white paper they showed up to check it out. It was interesting to experience our space transformed: calm and clean, yet too white and not entirely inviting. People's reactions to both the space and sound installation were fascinating.
I can't see myself ever doing something like this again... But who knows.
