Putting up my mum’s tapestries
Posted by Sonja
July 12, 2008
Permalink
Dear Mum,
I wish I could show you how good your tapestries look in my living room. I was so excited about getting them down here – they’ve been waiting at dad’s house for about two years now but it was hard finding someone who could drive them down.
I wasn’t sure what order to position them in, I remember you saying something about them being different seasons but it’s hard to tell which is which – the trees are green in all of them.
I remember they took you a year each to make, when I was small, and I used to think that was a very long time. Now I know it can go fast.
The pictures still smell of home to me – they smell like sweet beer, attics and the landing. It feels so wrong to be hanging them somewhere else. They belong at home. But the brown wool wall hanging is long gone and the cream sofa is in dad’s new house now.
It was difficult nailing them up in a neat grid – because they were each framed at a different time, they’re slightly different sizes and the woods are different. There’s a scratch on one, probably Rowan did it when he was small and being naughty.
I expected to feel more pleased, having them hanging up, but I just feel quite empty, because you’re not here to see. I thought when you asked me three years ago which of your tapestries I would want to keep if you died, that I wouldn’t be getting those tapestries for a long long time, so I almost looked forward to having them, in some future house, some future home when I was grown up.
I suppose I’m grown up now – I own this flat but it’s your money really, and they’re your tapestries, and they always will be.
Love from,
Sonja
xx
2 comments Categories: about us, craft
July 14th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Your mum’s tapestries look fabulous, Sonja, and I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t be proud of you hanging them in your beautiful home.
July 15th, 2008 at 1:27 am
They’re gorgeous. I’m really sorry you have to hang them up so much sooner than you ever imagined. They are very vivid and very lovely, it’s good that they’re up and can be admired and part of your home. And you captured really well how homes have specific evocative smells – I’m not sure how I’d characterise the smell of home in Bradford, but it has something to do with the attic and coffee and old books.