Dad Preparing for the Long Drive Home c.1962
As a collective, my parents collected antiques. Individually, my father collected fishing paraphernalia and stamps whilst my mother enjoyed her National Geographics, glassware and all things music. Whilst my parents collected what I deem more ‘normal’ things, my brother John collected creepy crawlies. A tarantula, tokay gecko and a boa constrictor to name a few. They all came to live in their individually controlled microcosms in our dark cavernous basement. The boa escaped once, lost in the abyss. It was discovered four-months later wrapped around an iron kettle, recollected and brought back into the fold.John documented in great detail each member of his menagerie even down to how they departed the collection i.e. lost, if they were sold or date of death. He did an autopsy on Emma the chain king snake splayed out on our kitchen table. No surprise he later became a pathologist. His collection offered me an opportunity and the privilege of being invited into his universe. It connected us, as objects and collections have the power to do.
In my formative years, these were my first introductions to collections. They wowed and inspired me. They were pivotal in sparking curiosity, capturing imagination, developing new interests and connecting me to something bigger. They encouraged me to really look – to see my environs in new and different ways encouraging life-long learning.
A group of accumulated items of a particular kind. I grew up to be a collector, which over the years has fed the artist and poet within. I’m drawn to unusual things that often carry a strong narrative. I see beauty in weirdness. I am always on the lookout for materials to be incorporated into my object-based artwork, my assemblages likened to visual poetry or as inspiration for new poetic text. One such work, The World’s Wife was inspired by Carol Ann Duffy’s collection of the same title.
In this assemblage I explored the concept of the writer, symbolised by using a Victorian writing box as a foundation. Within it I inserted elements to represent parts of the poem “Penelope”.
Like my brother’s collection and those of my parents, these bits of my own quirky objects and materials connect. They connect me to moments in time, experiences of both my own and others. These last four months have been particularly challenging. In our ever-changing developing world of social distancing I have formed a new collection, not one I intended.
Interestingly, the parts are not manmade but quirky nonetheless. This new collection began on the 20th of March when a box arrived with scribbling on the outside ‘Live Plants’. In it was a sorry looking Venus Flytrap, a surprise from my children. They thought since I didn’t have a garden, that I needed something green during lockdown. This led to a serious adventure in plant collecting and plant care. In the past I have always killed plants so I was not hopeful. I didn’t intend to acquire more than this one carnivorous plant – the collection just happened kind of like my family and as any part of a collection, it needed to be looked after.
The Venus Flytrap began to flourish and flower. I successfully pollinated it (no easy task) and produced seeds. The seeds are now planted and at the time of this writing I eagerly await germination. I also have acquired 10 other different kinds of plants through various means. I have grown my own herbs and harvested them courtesy of seeds given by a friend. This collection has connected me firstly with my children and then with others as I shared the development of my fly eating plant via social media and consulting with significantly more experienced gardeners in helping me to nurture my other new acquisitions.
A book containing various texts and poems. My introduction to poetry was My Brimful Book, a collection of text with poems of childhood, mother goose rhymes and animal stories woven within it. It was given to me by my parents when I was very young. I still have it.
Years later my mother gave me my first adult collection of poetry, The Family Album of Favorite Poems by P Edward Ernest. Although I now have a bookcase filled with poetry books, I continue to refer to this now and again. The lovely scent of its aged pages I find comforting.
Different collections throughout my creative life have delighted and inspired me and it continues. In the near future I will be finishing my Artist in Residence for Manchester Museum responding to their entomological collection and the Beauty And The Beasts exhibition (hyperlinked).
The residency was cut short in March due to the pandemic and it will now be completed in my studio in St Annes. Later this summer, people will be able to come and watch me work through the window on my ‘Insect Hotel’ created out of a grandfather clock.
Along with this three-dimensional work I have been inspired to write a series of poems with an entomological theme. Seemingly the number of a proper collection of poems is 30-100. I have a long way to go, but I’m working on it.
Here’s a taster:
Centipede Take heed! Take heed! Oh, Centipede
With legs of many - hundred-fold
You like to paralyze and eat
Roaches, moths, spiders - worms so cold
Dinner’s menu be such wiggly meat
You are the perfect pest control
At least cupboards you cannot deplete
And I can keep what’s mine to eat
Living in pure harmony
Together ever peacefully
In this house - In this home
Oh, Centipede we’re not alone.
Thank you for reading. J
Kate Eggleston-Wirtz
www.eggwirtz.com
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