I have lots of stories and photos of my mom's side of the family, but on my dad's side I have more stories than photos. That's one reason why my last three assemblages focused on my mom and her parents.
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| "Greener", which tells a story about my mother as a child |
But lack of photos hasn't stopped me from working on a new assemblage about my dad's maternal grandmother. In my head I call her by her nickname, Mickey.
Not a pretty woman, or kind either. She grew up poor in rural South Carolina, and had a hard life, most of which was her fault. Her relatives described Mickey as a mean drunk who abandoned her kids and trashed two (maybe three) marriages. I wish I knew what her reasons were, horrible though they probably were, for lashing out at her kids and nearly everyone else.
Her harshness made me think of a cold sea with a rocky shoreline, which led me to thinking about barnacles.
And what do barnacles do? They cling. Much like kids do, even to a negligent mother. I'll tell you more about the barnacle thing in my next post.