MAKING MEMORIES book launch

MAKING MEMORIES

We have been delighted to work with Gallery Oldham, using objects to make memories happen. The Gallery have run many reminiscence activities but this is the first time that the conversations and reminiscence have been channelled into something that can be kept – art and poems.

Phil and Lois at the Launch of Making Memories

MAKING MEMORIES IS A BOOK of creative 'recipes' for artwork and poetry stimulated by reminiscence. You won’t have come across many of these ideas before, because they've been invented especially for this book. All of the ideas were tried out by groups of participants, reacting to objects and ideas we brought along. The groups often included people with a dementia diagnosis and people with very pronounced physical problems, like mobility issues, or visual impairment.

The idea behind the Making Memories book is to share creative ideas, designed to stimulate reminiscence and turn it into the form of poems and artwork. Why do this? Making something from your experience can give it a clearer shape, give it greater meaning - and that is a powerful positive influence in anyone's life.

Anything like this helps (ie. being in a reminiscence session) just to be with people. It gives me something to talk about, to listen to apart from my own voice. You verbalise when you're on your own. Some activities are more interesting than others, but if you crave company to be honest you'll go to anything. I go to bingo here, but really we want conversation. I never played bingo before this, I had no interest. And when we do play it, you can't talk properly you're too busy.

A perfect activity is something like this: where we're doing something and discussing it and you have to think. I can think to myself I've spoken to someone, done something today. The good effect of it lasts longer.

In the bustle of a care home there isn’t always time come up with new ideas for activities, especially activities that are unique. This little book contains two years worth of creative experiments. Each of the recipes are custom made to last for an enjoyable half hour or hour. Some of them are even quicker, ideas for a 10 minute discussion, or quick little conversation starters. Others are easy ways into making artwork or poems, but which can go deeper if people want to for a day or more. They're a challenge, but an enjoyable challenge.

a page from Making Memories.

Objects stimulate memory - we've seen this time and again. Lois passed a rolling pin around a group and people were immediately talking about the kitchens of their childhood. I watched Glenys hand a cotton shuttle from a mill round a group of older people with dementia - and the fascination for that object was electric. It seemed to Lois and I that something could be done with that energy, generated by significant objects.

If you look at something for a second you might get a tiny glimpse of its power, but if you really focus on it you'll get bigger rewards. Like anything, the more you put in the more you get out.

Creative activities can bring focus to objects, helping to find a shape for the emotions and recollections that the objects bring. They can also help you go deeper. If you try to really search for the words that describe, say, how much an old teddy bear meant to you when you were a kid, you'll find that the object stops being just an object, it becomes a doorway back into the past.

We want to give confidence and a voice to people, many of whom haven't drawn a picture or written a poem for 50 or 60 years. So how to encourage confidence, without condescension? How to build a sense of pride in people's achievements, although their skills have changed?

People can be shut off by embarrassment, of their own volition. There's a stigma with mental health and society needs to address that. But I find activities like this therapeutic. People feel comfortable, not threatened, at ease with others. It engenders a feeling of confidence and fellowship. The nice thing about this group is that people are affected by a common theme - and others' duty is sharing (not caring) and improving quality of life.

It's vital that we introduce activities into care venues that challenge. Challenge our and their pre-conceptions of what older people can achieve. It's true that not everyone will be able or want to join in, however rather than always reducing activity to the 'lowest common denominator'  we can adapt activities to peoples skills and abilities. Its a fine line. Acceptance of new limitations, awareness of new possibilities. Most important of all there is no Right or Wrong, just the adventure of having a go.

“Margaret would like to say that she had an excellent afternoon with you. She said you're a great change from all the familiar faces here and the TV too. She'd like you to come back, tomorrow.”

Be well

We would like to wish winter warmth to the many people we have met this year, and also to those scattered far and wide across the world who read this blog. We are very aware that warmth and comfort are far distant luxuries to some and so this wish is particularly for those struggling in the storms of life.

A lot of people have said thank you to us after the art sessions we run, sometimes simply to be polite, sometimes in a very emotional way. Lois and myself would like to offer our thank you back, because your company and the insights you bring are very precious to us, perhaps more than you realise.

This year has had many high points (exhibitions, new projects, funding) but also some tough times, including bereavement. One of the things that keeps Lois and I going strong is the pleasure of being "arthur+martha", our other and possibly better selves.  The arts bring meaning to our lives; making work in collaboration with many communities has brought a sense of deeper value and human community that we would sorely miss.

All who have met with us, worked with us and shared a cup of tea and a joke, or simply some time: thanks. Be well.

The object of remembering

I’ve been feeling grief as a physical force, its pushed and pulled at my body like a lead weight, as I write my head is pounding, my shoulders aching, one minute I feel sick, the next an appetite for the comfort of sugar, my teeth and gums are receding, my hair and skin lack lustre and most of all I feel overwhelmingly exhausted, I’m trying to flow with it, ride the waves, accept.

My dad's funeral was last week. Since then I have been clearing out his flat, right now allocating new spaces to his belongings. It’s a tough, important, painful job, but satisfying when it works, finding new life for cherished objects. That’s what this bit of writing is all about. Phil and I in our work with arthur+martha often explore the power of objects, but never have I experienced first hand the heart wrenching effect so clearly on myself and my sisters.

My dad's death was pretty sudden, my eldest sister and I entered his flat the next day and found it as if he had just bobbed out. His quilt pushed half way back, his slippers in place, a unsmoked cigarette in the ash tray, milk in the fridge. I didn’t want to move those slippers until the last day of the clear up, not out of anything morbid, but rather they were dad somehow.

Dad was a retired architect, his sense of design, music, art, have enormously informed, inspired and educated my sisters and I. His small one bedroom flat was full of objects collected over the years, 80% of which had memories attached for one or all of us. There were voyages of mystery, discovery and delight to; a box with five beautiful Christening gowns, who did they belong to? And in the same box a child’s tartan kilt and shorts worn by my dad, I have a photo of him wearing them on my wall, but why didn’t he show me the real item when he was alive?  And perhaps most poignant a single child’s leather glove. My sister has it - so she can hold dad's hand.

Many of the objects hold a complex collection of meaning, of reading and emotion, they hold the story of my father. The objects also have their own history, some inherited from family, some carefully selected and treasured items from the 50s, 60s and 70s from around the world. In addition, the objects hold powerful memories for my sisters and me from childhood and growing up. It appeared that the greatest clout on my sisters and me, was to discover objects that had been hidden in our memories, that wonderful, aching, spark of recollection. I now understand on a much deeper level how some of the older people we work with on arthur+martha projects are reduced to tears, or joy when they encounter an unexpected object.

The history and life of these objects carry on. Each one now has to have a life time of chain-smoking removed from it, brought into the light a space found for it. Musical instruments will be played again,  (dad getting his own back, my noisy kids playing them) cooking pots will no longer be simply on show, but used, records played and song along to. I will share my memories of the objects with my children and they in turn will add another layer of history to them. They will take on new meaning and new importance and stay treasured items for future generations, although over time I’m sure a few will end broken, un-sentimentally sold or given away to the charity shop.

Writing this down helps to make sense of the process, just as writing and speaking the eulogy for my dads funeral helped. I’m told the first year is the hardest.

Speaking on tongues

Rizla papers are an icon in the ritual of smoking. The little green packs are a staple part of every roll your own ciggy smoker's toolkit. Being pieces of paper, they can also be adapted to the job of writing.

Today, equipped with Rizlas, we visited a Residential Care Home in Oldham in the morning and a social tea-drinking group for older people in the afternoon. We wanted to make work that conjured memories of pubs - starting with drinking, cigs and snacks - gathering thoughts from the groups. Pubs can be heaven, or hell, depending on your disposition, so we were wary with this subject matter. In fact, everyone took a shine to it, while acknowledging that uneasiness.

We brought in beer glasses, ashtrays, old cigarettes (Senior Service, an unsmoked box from circa 1960) and made notes based on the conversation. We then asked folks to pick lines or words that they liked and rewrite them on the Rizla papers. Lined up in random order, the Rizla lines made little poetic jigsaw pieces that, in a few sharp details, evoked a much bigger world, but one that is now the past.

Below is one of these poems, written in several hands. It starts in the pub, of course - the Hen and Chicken - before moving onto the Spotted Cow and then discussing the various pipes smoked by 'my husband's gran' and favourite tobacco smells, before concluding 'I'd rather have a cheese and onion pie'. It's a pub crawl in miniature and the paper it's written on carries overtones of taste, smoke - and the act of making language, on the tongue.

Between here and there

Entering the Hindu Temple at the Indian Association building

in Oldham.

Project: Making Memories. We've worked at many venues in Oldham over the last two years, using objects to stimulate creative reminiscence. 

Phil writes:

Once again in the Hindu temple, the sounds and the colours. Outside it's a grey, cold Oldham morning, but in here are rich textures for all the senses. Golds, pinks, purples. The smell of cooking gently warms the air with spices. The gods are in their shrines, people come in, greet one another. A bell is rung, chanting starts.

We've run several highly productive workshop sessions here at the temple and the welcome has always been warm and generous. I'm now here as part of our finishing-up process, to show people some of the work they've done, answer questions, take photos and record sound, make neatness of the loose ends. It's a pleasure to be back in the temple, and a sadness too. When I leave, I feel suddenly downcast, out in the grey again.

What has been fascinating for me during the project is hearing of people's life journeys to this place, which often stretch across two cultures and two or more continents. Many of the people we've worked with at the temple arrived in the UK in the 1970s or 80s, having spent their childhoods in India, Pakistan, Uganda. The details of their journeys and arrivals have been the subject of several poems, which we've shared on this blog in recent months.

Today's mission: a poem-making process that explores dual identity. Each verse has to discuss some element of double-ness, duality, pairing, or halving. The form is very simple - it is simply a set of questions. One of the women at the temple tested this out with a fascinating piece - a journey from Gujarat to Oldham, which we'll feature in a separate blog. As with any of our ideas, this exercise can be freely adapted, chopped and changed, or totally reinvented.

Between here and there

For each pair of questions question, write a verse in reply. The verses much each be the same length, whatever length or style suits. Mention both the 'here' and the 'there' in each verse. Answer as many questions as you like:

What is your clearest memory of your childhood country - and your first impression of your new home in Britain?

Who accepted you, who rejected you?

What did you learn, what did you lose?

Who do you miss, who have you met?

What have you kept from childhood, what have you been happy to give away?

It can be as simple or as complex a piece of writing as you want to make it. Once it's been typed up you could consider laying it out in two columns, to emphasise the idea of pairs and splits.

Monograms

Oldham: Making Memories

Making Memories is a project with older people in Oldham and Oldham Galleries, devising ways to work with objects in memory boxes, that will stimulate reminiscence and creative work. 

Last week, I played with the idea of embroidered linen, in particular monograms. I took with me a collection of 1930s/40s embroidered tablecloths, a sample I'd embroidered from a vintage transfer pattern of Mrs sewn onto a napkin and an embroidered linen Pyjama case. 

The rich subject matter discussed ranged from the pleasure of embroidery as a hobby, the frightening, often stern Home Economic teacher, instructing stitching at school, to monogramed or initialled hankies brought from the market. 

I was aware before the session that the creative activity was going to suit some people, and not others. For some designing their monogram on paper was satisfying and enough of a challenge, using carbon paper and old fashioned fonts they created beautiful small works of art. Those who chose to stitch became lost in concentration, all taking their works away to finish at a later time.

Angie and Margaret

I believe that its vital that we do introduce activities into care venues that challenge our pre-conceptions of what older people can do or what we perceive they want to do. It's true that not everyone will be able or want to join in, however rather than always reducing activity to the 'lowest common denominator'  we can adapt activities to peoples skills and abilities. Its a fine line, not to put people off for doing something too complicated for people who may have difficulties holding a needle, problem eyesight or memory loss, just as it is at the other end of the spectrum not doing something to child like,  verging on condescending.

Margarets embroidery in progress

This particular activity had 3 steps, individuals could stop at any stage.

1. Selecting a font from a selection printed from old transfer patterns and off the internet.

2. Creating a monogram/initials design using  paper or fabric (that could be a napkin), sandwiching carbon paper to transfer the letters.

3. The option of embroidering those letters to make a lasting memory of the session, or gift for a loved one.

A bowler for national occasions

Alice and Joan

Making Memories: Oldham
Hats are different in the 21st century. There's a social etiquette to the hats of the 1920s, 30s, 40s that is now gone. All those men wearing flat caps to the football, just look at the old photos. Hundreds of men in tweed caps, cheap, warm and waterproof. The women weren't allowed in some churches unless they wore a hat or scarf, to show respect. But hats were also a signal for celebration, going out on a Saturday night was topped off with a fancy hat. 

Today's sessions were themed around hats. The morning group were in a Residential Ward at Shawside Residential and Nursing Home and were dazzled by the wondrous hats that were brought in by our student volunteer Isobel and Gallery Oldham. The hats became a delightful prop for dressing-up, plus a stimulus for memories. They evoked early memories of mums and dads, all in hats from long-ago childhoods. They also evoked the social mores of the times, hats for religion, hats to show rank and status, hats that couldn't be afforded.

Joan

Margaret

The joy of putting on hats and the different personae that went with them was infectious - our morning was punctuated with giggles as well as hats.

In the afternoon, at Chadderton, the talk took a darker tone, of mill accidents and child labour, all spinning off this one topic, the hat. Here it was a badge of steadfastness and social position, earned through sheer hard bloody work. Sometimes literally bloody.

The names of hats have poems in them, listen: the bowler, the trilby, the panama, the Ascot hat, the homburg, the topper, and the trilby. With them come mind pictures and with the pictures, words. We made some little poems based on the number three (the number of the hat-trick) to give them a shape, which we'll share in a later blog.

Lilly

Your own menu

Making Memories, Friday 7th March

The theme for the session was food from your travels abroad, and first tastes of foreign food here. I brought in Mediterranean bread, ciabatta bread, olives, sun dried tomatoes. bread sticks and some dipping oils. We discussed food stuffs that are familiar and are taken for granted in our modern world, for example curries- a firm favourite for many people-  but for most of the older generation I worked with today,  described as almost exotic and 'not for them'. As we get older for many of us we are programmed to the foods of our youth, to our traditional cuisine.

However, trying new flavours in familiar food stuffs worked really well- many people were squeamish about trying sun-dried tomatoes on their own, but happily munched on sun-dried tomatoes as an ingredient in the Mediterranean Bread. In both venues the staff said they would be trying this activity out again with different food stuffs. 

Taste is one of our most robust senses, although there is a small decline in taste in people over 60, older people need much more salt and sugar to be able to detect them. 

Trying the new foods out, stimulated conversations about first times for different foods and rationing... I feel its so important that with reminiscence activities we also also think about the future, you're never to old to try new things, and plan for the future- which takes me to the second activity- planning a perfect menu. 

The idea:

1. Prepare: gather together a range of 'vintage' and new menus, have a look for copies from your local cafe or restaurant and/or download ones from the internet.

2. Discuss then write down ideas for your perfect three course meal.  You can take inspiration from childhood favourites, or the fanciest restaurants, or family traditions... Don't forget to include a drink (or two)

selecting words from menu designs

3. Ask individuals to select words such as 'Menu' or 'Starter' from the 'real' menus, or printouts, then create a sandwich with a piece of plain paper at the bottom (cartridge paper or watercolour paper is nice) then a sheet of carbon paper then the printed menu on top.

4. Participants can then copy the selected word/s onto their paper. Encourage them to take different design elements and words from different menus to create something unique.

5. Finally participants can add their own choices to the menu, creating something truely unique.

6. Think about how these menu's could be used in a care setting or with family? eg. to help celebrate a special occasion?

hand writing the menu

THE STARS

Making Memories

Phil writes

It's difficult to comprehend the toughness of life for some of the people we encounter. Here, Doreen gives an account of her childhood with a mix of despair and a glimmering affection. This piece is verbatim from a conversation, arranged into loose 12-line verses. The poem is part of a wider collection we are putting together, an epic poem called Albion. 

THE STARS

a ration book and no money and air-raids and
to be honest, life, I found it hard
secondhand clothes, me mother and father
parted
young
go up and see him, collect five bob
weren't a pleasant life where
Mother sent me
in the rain
shoes with holes, cardboard in the bottom
never had no fruit, a tiny bit of butter, dimps
how we lived, thought I'd forgotten

all that
it's gone, it's a different chapter
running errands for Gracie Fields
(our house next to the stage door, Oldham Theatre Royal
me dangling me legs over the wall)
Mario Lanza he were there looking young, Tommy Trinder
they'd buy me all sorts, chocs
they were lovely people
the stars
always holes in me shoes in the 30s
but I love
chocolate

comfortable, it tastes comfortable
never known anyone not like chocolate
it doesn't love me though, puts weight on me
comfortable, Shirley Bassey, Arthur Askey
used to go down to the Wharf, to line up for everything
two potatoes
three apples
if you had a banana couldn't have no orange
marshmallows don't mean much to me
lined up for fruit in Higginshaw, lined up in all weather
secondhand clothes off a Tally Woman
always holes in me shoes in the 30s

collecting cinders at Lower Moor
cinders on me back cos we had no coal
oh it were heavy, dirty
weren't as clean as I should've been
secondhand, they'd class me as a tramp.
Council clogs, bloody uncomfortable
at the Seaman's Mission and Boundary Park the workhouse
she did laundry for the hospital
Mother'd take me and I'd sit
under the table while she washed, ironed
we had a room at aunty's; glad I got
older

weren't as clean as I should've
secondhand clothes off a Tally Woman
Mother'd have an old man at the door
chat to him
sure she gave him a kiss or two
cos he gave her his money
but they were lovely, the stars
and I were such a pretty girl, strawberry blonde
they loved me, sent me for errands
next to the stage door at Oldham Royal
dangling legs by the stage door, remember
the past is the truth.


Doreen

Doreen

Vermeer and the Saturday afternoon cinema

Lois writes about the art process in Making Memories:

I've been having a re-think about techniques for making art. I've always steered clear of tracing, the word 'CHEAT' rings too loudly in my ears. For me, it has connotations of other 'childish' activities such as dot-to-dot or colour-by-number. All bundled together, these seem condescending and simplistic when given as an activity to an older generation who have shaped and navigated a complex world.

However, what we're trying to achieve with arthur+martha is to give confidence and a voice to people, many of whom haven't drawn for 50 or 60 years. We often work with people who have dementia, and may experience anomalies with sight, causing them to interpret the world around them in unusual ways. In fact, normal ageing can lead to visual difficulties including cataracts, glaucoma, muscular degeneration. Ah, getting older can be so much fun. 

So how to encourage confidence, without condescension? How to foster a sense of pride in people's achievements, although their skills have changed?

Bernard meets John Wayne  

Yesterday we used tracing as part of a creative/reminiscence package, investigating how films and books created the background for play acting. Bernard (above) chose the photograph of John Wayne and carefully re-interpreted him in line on acetate. This isn't as simple as it sounds, the lines were drawn sensitively, each selected with care. The physical act of drawing supports fine motor skills, creates an atmosphere of calm and deep concentration and can help stimulate further reminiscence and discussion. 

We are in fact keeping good company when it comes to using techniques such as tracing. It's thought that the artist Vermeer (and Old Masters generally) used optical aids such as the camera obscura to develop skill and technique. Cheating?

Artistically, the pieces created yesterday felt very poignant. Bernard's drawing of a childhood hero, sits with his lines of reminiscence describing hide and seek in a bombed out Oldham. The photo above evokes the boy he was then, with the man he is now. The screen bravado of Wayne is layered with acceptance and real, lived experience.

Vera carefully drew from a photo of Clarke Gable. Her writing on the layered acetate shares her joy of the cinema as a shy young women - and her late husband who confidently asked her on their first date to the flicks, several decades ago.  

Some of the group were very happy just drawing, with no need to trace. Molly's drawing (shown above) is of Shirley Temple. Molly described the cinema as escapism, leaving the films dancing and singing like her heroine, in contrast to the poverty she lived with. In the photo she has juxtaposed her Shirley with Faye Dunaway's glammed-up gangster-ette in Bonny and Clyde. 

Roy (below) shared with my dad a love of the gangster movies. His Edward G Robinson snarling in sharp focus, belies the gentle face behind. Roy's image was a diptych of two Edward Gs, one smiling the other a frown.

Other firm favourites for films and play acting were cowboys and indians, the Lone Ranger, doctors and nurses. As a child, who would you have chosen to play? And is the trace of that role model still with you now?

Carers and sharers

Making Memories

Oldham

Phil writes

We're coming to the end of our run of workshops at a dementia drop-in at Royton, running sessions convened and observed by psychologist Polly Kaiser. We have had some fascinating feedback from participants - below is an example of a very thoughtful response. Because group dynamics are crucial for folks dealing with dementia, who often feel vulnerable, discussion about the atmosphere of the group is at the core of this. We were also interested by the careful distinction between 'carers' and 'sharers' at the end of this comment. Although our work frequently has a therapeutic outcome, we draw a distinction between our role of artists and that of carers or therapists - but we've never managed to do it so succinctly as in the following quote.

Participant Comment

The danger is of service-users feeling embarrassed and if you can overcome it. People feel embarrassed by the condition, dementia - but the atmosphere in this group means people feel comfortable and valued. You're not encroaching into dangerous territory if you keep things fairly light, if the tone is introduced with a light touch. There's a lot of skill managing a group like this, group dynamics is a science of itself.

People can be shut off by embarrassment, of their own volition. There's a stigma with mental health and society needs to address that. But I find activities like this therapeutic. People feel comfortable, not threatened, at ease with others. It engenders a feeling of confidence and fellowship. The nice thing about this group is that people are affected by a common theme - and others' duty is sharing (not caring) and improving quality of life.

Participant in dementia drop-in group, Oldham

13 February 2014