Images of Survivorship

I think... you know because of the theme we are concentrating on that is very literal. So it is about being trapped and when I just looked at it just now, I was thinking why did I do those bits on the top and I remember thinking about a garden and it is things like... everything should be quite rosy in the garden, but in reality you are trapped behind bars, you know it could be barriers or bars that you are just trapped in a situation it could be mentally trapped not just physically trapped, but you know... If you're mental state is not right and you feel trapped mentally, then you are trapping yourself physically. So it is a case of sort of right... you're sat in there looking out... but actually where looking at it as a viewer, we are outside looking in, so there is a bit of a two-way thing about looking internally and looking externally and looking at how things should be... supposedly should be on the outside, compared to how you are looking on the inside. So it wasn't just sort of putting somebody in a cage it was about the mental state of it all.

Erm… I've just seen my ex-partner and just how he was and all the abuse mental and physical, erm just how much it scares me….erm... even like three years down the line, and it's still….erm...not really…oh sorry! I just worry all the time… wherever I go…erm what's going to happen?… erm is he going to be around?…erm... what is he going to do if I bump into him? Erm... I try not to go out as much in the daytime, if I've out to go out, I go early in the morning when I feel that I'm more safer…erm maybe erm… people say to me I should move out the area, but you know, I feel I'm too old to start all over again in a different area, erm... and I know quite a few people there that, whether they would stand by me if anything happened, I don't know? Cause people when anything happens they just turn the other way, don't they? So yeh, I just feel scared, erm...literally frightened to death really…and…worried, and I'm sorry for that!

Question: Is there anything else you would like to say?

Erm… Well I just wish things could be different and I'm trying to be strong to make it different..erm… but it's not always that easy. Whether ever it will be I don't know, erm… but when I see him I, when I see that… it's like when I see him, it just makes me shake and if I see him passing in the car or whatever…you know I think is he going to come back, is he going to follow me…Is he come back about ten times…and it's like…I try to go in the shop and wait in the shop, or jump on a bus and go places I don't want to go and just to get out of the way so, erm… you know I don't know I'm just always scared, he scares me to death.

Thank-you! - Thank-you!

Can I ask a question while I'm here? I was intrigued with what you put in the mouth, glasses? Can tell us what that is all about?

Yeh of course, no, because erm… because he was always verbal, always verbal, when he used to come in from work I used to think, oh what mood is he in? What is going to happen tonight, you know is he going to be happy with his tea and is going to start afterwards and all things like that. So he was always mouthing at me, why have you done this and why haven't you done the other? I told you I didn't want bolognaise the other day, I don't like it anymore. You know why don't you do erm… lasagne or something? So constantly on all the time, and then when he used to really scream and go rigid and just go red in the face and really, really start throwing things and that at me and even if it weren't verbally it was physically, it was anything that could hurt and was anything he could get hold of, erm.. so he was always at me and that's why the things are in his mouth and in his hands they are because he was always throwing and everything and I just feel that it was daggers at me and knives and anything… anything he could get hold off erm… that what he was like, but why I put up with it for 22 years, I don't know? But at the time… I did try to get away several times but it weren't possible…. To be honest I didn't know that there was the help out there…that there was until like the last six month, before I left….erm…. and that's when I found out that there was the help, that erm… that you know that I needed by women's aid, cause without them I don't know what I would have done? They helped me so much.

Yeah, the Buddhist monks in the orange clothes that's what he represents and they're all dressed the same so there's no class distinction in them and that. And the begging bowl because I think that's what they do and people see there's more begging goes on now than anything isn't there? You know, these luncheon kitchens and things and I think this if I can remember rightly this is the slice of bread or whatever to share among people so, they're probably people who you might be able to speak to because they've got no… no sides to them if I think like that and they're people who will share what they've got with people and that's how it should be in this world you know erm, to erm… share things, your knowledge, your bit of food you've got, it makes you feel better if you can share something with people. Erm… don't give it for reward, give it to people, you know because you want to give because you feel empathy with them. I think the Buddhist monk is there to represent everybody, er… because to me they seem as though they've got no sides to them no sides of er… they won't give you...erm... rich or poor they all class the same. Until you trust in opening to someone you have to trust everyone because you when you meet people, you don't know whether they're good or evil or whatever or if they're taking you for a ride like, so, I'm a bit naïve I think I trust in too many people perhaps and perhaps some will say "oh you shouldn't talk to him and make a friend of him" but that's not me I put a lot of trust in people and I hope that they are going to tell me the truth, it doesn't always work out like that it's like my kids, I know they tell me lies but I can honestly say I don't tell my kids lies and never have done. I never told my husband any, but I found years and years later that I shouldn't have trusted him so much but I trust people utterly til… until I've found them out, sometimes it takes years to find people out and then it's too late. I've seen things on the television how they live in the mountains and they're very poor but then they go out and go round different parts of the world and they seem to be so calm and…. and.. and they survive. Even that's the begging bowl say from say to put out to ask for arms and things. But I'll always, when I see them in town I always think "oh I wonder what it would be like" I always wanted to go and live in a commune when I was younger so as when my kids left home I would have dozens of other people's kids around me to look after to look after to feel wanted 'cause I get this feeling of not being wanted. I still get the feeling now of not being wanted.

That was the first one I made and that was very sort of like straight to the point... you know about the heartbreak and you do feel, even if you really love somebody you can feel like even though you're making the break, you know, that's all about the break, that's all about you know, your heart-breaking, but it is obviously about your life breaking-up and the tears... it sort of like, it could be your tears, it could be other people's tears, your children, you know it's just... that's why it's several... it could be like you crying, it could be erm... Everything pouring out of you literally you know; not just tears it could be like relief, it could be fear, it is all sorts of things pouring out of you when everything comes to a head. You, it is know, it's about the heartbreak, but I actually did it quite sort of deep... deliberately, because it goes, it really cuts deep and that is literally what I did with the heart when I cut it really deep. So… it is about all the hurt and everything, the emotions that go with it all.

There wasn't a lot more to say about that really, it's just all about you know... the heartbreak that is almost as an end result of everything that has gone before, so you might have shed a lot of tears before you got to that stage, you might suddenly come across it and realise what you have got to, especially you know the sort of physical abuse... erm situation you have got to... you might to just have to literally take the kids and run like err... I did you know packed everything up when he was out of the house and got away quick and afterwards although it was relief, it was still a big wrench, it was still heartbreak, it was still him and I breaking up you know... and you probably hear it all the time and you say I love him but... and you stay and you stay for the kids, you stay because there is no security elsewhere, but when you go you have made that break and again it is like you know the big break... so it is cutting right through the pair of you.