Velta is my mother who was forced to leave her homeland Latvia because of the fighting just before the end of WW2.
From the moment she walked out of her country she became a displaced person. At the tender age of 13 years.
My July exhibition will be a ‘snapshot’ of survival and how my mother remembers those dark days. Her innocence, her suffering and her survival is shown through a series of drawings and paintings.
I cannot believe I haven’t updated my blog since October. However a lot of unplanned circumstances have taken over the last few weeks but now I am back on track!
My paintings are on target. I have averaged 2 per month since starting this blog. My biggest concern at the moment is my unwillingness to pass through the start of Veltas Journey, which has meant that it has been tackled from all angles in a multitude of ways! And the next stages… which I hoped I would be planning at this point ,have not had a look in as yet!
How can one portray the utter devastation my mother as a young girl (displaced) witnessed in painterly way? How do I target the aftermath of whole cities flattened and the abject human despair?
The next stage will be the Displaced Persons quarters and their comradship and survival. I am hoping to reach this stage in my own journey through my mothers memories before too long. Certainly in the next two weeks if all goes well.
I really am striving to create a vehicle, a painterly biography of Veltas Journey, in such a way that the exhibition should also take the viewer on their own journey through those times reaching the terminus of her arrival in the UK.
On the wall of my studio I drafted out a time-line for Veltas’ Journey’ which bullet points the 18 months of her displacement in time and events. I have not moved from the first bullet point! There are 5 canvases and I haven’t moved from # 1 yet!
Velta went through so much, but she counts herself lucky and unlucky.
She counts herself lucky because she was very young but had met up with 6 other girls of a similar age and they stuck close together for much of this time oblivious to the wider hidden horrors which were being staged all over europe. All the girls days were geared to searching for the next piece of bread and the warmest place to sleep.
She felt unlucky because they all became desensitised to walking over dead bodies and body parts without thought or feeling.
More importantly to her and a fact which causes her a great deal of sorrow, even today, is that she lost every single one of those girls who kept her going, becoming the only living survivor.
Although she witnessed terror and death over a prolonged period she did not know until after the war what was occuring in any other place but only the place she was in.
She feels in retrospect she was both naive and fortunate.
In no way do wish to present ‘blood and guts’ to the viewer, rather I feel I need to persevere with an even more concentrated effort to truly exorcise this particular episode with my best interpretation of the events and sincerely hope that the pain of these events show through.
You may well understand now why I am finding it difficult to create my current paintings/interpretations of her horrors and the horrors of WW2.
When I finally find the best portrayal of my own feelings of the subject,( and I will know when I get there) only then will I allow myself to be catapulted onto the next chapters.
I have to admit that I feel I am on a journey myself and have shed a few tears over in my attempts to get these images to feel ‘right’ .
Velta had many happy though fleeting moments many were simple acts of kindness which for the girls gave them hope.
My progress has been phenominal since I had the opportunity to use this large unit through ‘Point Blank’ an organisation who have access to empty spaces, when businesses have left or stopped trading and the landlords, (bless their souls) support creatives like myself and makers or theatre groups by allowing temporary use of the premises until such times that they can be let.
I am fortunate because without it I would be cramped in my tiny attic conversion with the danger of running out of space as my work piles up in readiness for my exhibition ‘Veltas Journey Displaced’
My output has been incredible and I can only put it down to the space I am using and the intensive energy I can devote solely to my art! I would highly recommend any artist/creative/theatre group or individual to contact Point Blank (contact me for details) if they are in the Midlands Area and in need of temporary premises.
For one off use there is possibilty of no charge whatsoever, whilst more regular use may mean a very modest charge towards utilities. The units are so large where I am based that it is possible to even share the same unit and never get in each others way!
When I moved in I had the idea of completing two works per month and I have happily gone way passed that tentative target! The way my imagination is leading me through my mothers memoirs has resulted in overlapping styles. This, I deduce is because there has been much lateral thinking on my part about the means to portray the violence, the bloodshed, displacement and the politics artistically without resorting to the obvious blood and guts and finger pointing.
In my images I want to show my personal interpretation of all these elements with an artistically created backcloth of paintings and drawings which have adhered to Veltas story.
Well I have been very active in the ways to create images from the never ending chaos of my imagination which is switched on, seemingly, 24 hours a day to do justice to ‘Veltas Journey’.
To remind me of the sequence of her journey so that I do not deviate or forget certain elements and ideas I constructed a storyline much like an author would construct a storyline and it is pinned on the wall. When my ideas seem to stall I take a good look at my original storyline it has been a massive help and I have found from that I can even add to it!
I have also completed lots of drawings during this process so far and will probably exhibit a selection of these preliminery sketches as part of the exhibition.
I feel the process is as important as the exhibition and it will show where my inspirational ideas came from. I am on a journey myself.
I have to date finished one and started two other paintings. At the moment all deal with the very beginning of my mothers long journey.
I also decided the best way I could portray the futility of war and how fragile the film of peace is even today, was to present a collage of the age old question ‘why’
Other images deal with displaced people picking raw food from the fields to eat. The constant search for food and the methods the segregated girls used to offset the hunger.
Reaching the port and seeing the cargo ship which would take them to Poland.
She remembers the hunger and on boarding the ship being given a slice of dried bread and a scrap of fat. People shared the space with pigs and cows. It was not a cruise liner by any stretch of the imagination and the conditions were cramped.
I am looking for a sponsor in order to visit Riga and Jelgava in Latvia and do some more research for this exhibition and to incorporate a short video of Latvia today.
The inspiration behind this exhibition came directly from the images derived from my mothers storytelling of her time in WW2 as a displaced person, the conditions she faced, the perilous journey, her innocence and naivety, her ultimate survival. e.g.
The dress she was wearing when she fled her country was sewn from Latvias flag (red and white) it was impossible to buy new clothing and she was still growing at 13 years old. Because of the fighting she was separated from her whole family and it was to take 50 years before she saw them again!
The huge coat that both she and her best friend had to share as the autumn turned to winter and they only had the clothes they stood up in. (One arm around each other and one arm each in the sleeves.)
No water to wash in for weeks, no food to speak of, seeing the unthinkable and doing the impossible, surviving.
My mother was not able to return to see her mother or her sisters for 50 years!
I already have drawings of which portray what these memories of my mothers journey inspired in me. And I intend to do many more. My first oil painting was finished at the beginning of the week and my second is in full swing. I anticipate completing at least two canvases each month.
I would like to process my thoughts with my blog through these next 10 months by sharing my experiences as I prepare for my exhibition in July2013
