"Penny and I do not travel light" 27th of June 2018

Penny and I do not travel light 

We arrived on Erddig Ward with a large trolley and a wheelie suitcase.

We finally settled in one ward having been sent to one by one member of staff and then someone else decided we would be better off in another.

We had decided to work together today and based ourselves with a lady who the staff had suggested we work with.

We were introduced to other patients too but mainly they said that they couldn't do art or their hands would no longer let them.

Staff and patients around us soon realised that we weren't  doing “Art” in the traditional sense.

I brought a selection of objects including a watering can, a Rosemary Plant, a box of silver spoons.

We looked and these with the patient and chatted to her for some time and then Penny brought out her typewriter.

She showed the patient how to use it and she wanted to write her name and then her address 

so then we moved onto directions to her house - which turned out to be the house she lived in as a child - she described her house in some detail and told us about the farm and a cow kicking her and the milk off the stool on a Sunday morning before chapel.

All of this was recorded by Penny as audio and also on the typewriter.

It was lovely to work with this patient and to be able to distract her from wanting to leave the ward in search of her brother and nephews as she was worried that they would get lost trying to find her.

Whilst working with this patient the lady in the next bed started to engage with us too and it turned out that she had trained as a typist and had several old typewriters in her attic at home - Penny invited her to type something but she wouldn’t.

Instead Penny typed a postcard to her daughter and the patient dictated. 

As the residency is over a short period of time Penny and I are already looking for material to turn into a text based artwork but at the same time we want the sessions with patients to be meaningful.

It was good to work together using my objects as a way in to start a conversation and then to get the typewriter involved as a way to focus on a personal piece of writing and the beginnings of a map or directions of some kind.

Later on Penny found where the first patients farm house might be on a map using her directions.