A Christmas Voice

 I have enjoyed making quite a few pieces of  felt during 2012, amongst them Project Dragonfly, The Dying of the Sun, and The Lost Sheep. 

In January another piece was made and given,
I have waited until now to tell the story of A Christmas Voice,
or C90 as it was named in my head whilst I worked on it.

A long time ago a friend and I began collaborating. I made a piece of felt for Karen to write about and Karen sent me some of her creative writing to inspire some felt making.

Her prose and poems were fabulous - prompting lots of memories and familiar situations or feelings. I had some ideas at first but nothing that leapt out as encapsulating a whole work or doing her words justice. 

Shortly after Christmas last year I re-read the items she had sent and a spark was ignited!

A Christmas Voice

The day before my birthday was quiet.

The turkey was gone, the chocolates sparse,

Only one cousin was still in our house, and

The tree lights blinked a Christmas reminder.

With nothing much to do now,

We talked of times gone by, a shared past.

I suddenly remembered, in the back of a draw,

As if it was nothing, an old tape.

Thought about after nearly twenty years,

Into the cassette player it went, fitting snugly,

Like Cinderella’s shoe, a little nugget

Of pure gold on a C90.

Pressing play, we all held our breath,

Time suspended, and then a voice, so familiar,

Spoke of a life we had never known.

My Gran spoke again, as she always used to.

Twelve children in a house with two bedrooms,

A murder in Aston,

A schoolteacher with a wicked temper,

And a Dad who never came home from the war.

We looked at each other amazed.

My Gran was in the room with us again,

As she always had been at Christmas,

Talking and talking, making another world come alive.

These days when we visit Gran, she is quieter.

Her voice sounds the same,

Cheery and hers,

But she asks when her mum is coming round,

And we always say, she’ll be round tomorrow…

It started with the green Christmas tree background and the blinking tree lights.  For those of you who are old enough to remember C90 cassettes - there is a homage to the case shape and winding, flimsy tape. The three distinct wool threads represent the colourful varied and exciting tales or yarns of Karen's Gran, which eventually become fused together into more repetitive and quieter phrases.

It was important that these threads began and continued beyond the edge of the felt.

I didn't realise that shortly before I had begun work on this piece Karen's Gran had sadly passed away, it made the making all the more poignant.
Karen's Gran's voice that had been preserved on the nugget of pure gold, has been transferred onto computer so that it  can still be heard -  also family and friends will have many happy memories of her,  hence the motif continuing beyond the edges.
Following suggestions by relatives Karen's poem was printed for people to read and keep after her Gran's funeral.

Hope this has prompted happy memories of exciting tales!
x