When I was 6, we moved into old traditional polish cottage. It must have been built around 1940 or 50. By traditional I mean one room plus kitchen, big timber log house with two tiny windows. Old tiled furnace in one corner of the room. There was a shed where the animals used to live, attached to the house. It became a storage space for 'everything else' and later became my dark room. No, it was not a place of dark magic. Just alchemy. The only place in the house I had some privacy, and also my photography studio. And by that I mean a bit of space amongst other clutter, a bit of a clear counter to put the trays on and a line to hang the photos from, to dry them. There was no heating there. I loved it. I loved that, somehow I made the best out of this crazy, hostile space. This is a good memory. I feel proud of good memories. Us, people, have this ability to survive unimaginable situations. And we can change the way we think about them. In time.
No one lived in this house for who knows how long, before we moved in, and so, the post communistic fingers of modernisation did not touch it. While people around began enjoying comforts of bathrooms, we still had an outhouse. Piles of hay were waiting for many years in the attic for some cow to eat it, and is probably still sitting there for all I know.
Above is my depiction of our bathroom, when I was growing up and until I was 20 years old. It was a corner in a kitchen, with a bucket, chair, a basin. A rustic take on a concept of a wash room. Through coloured glass of memory, the child I was then, is seeing with a different eye. These were not ordinary objects, like no object is ordinary when it becomes a witness. If the stones could talk, we would hear their stories of footsteps, storms, wet bodies moulding to their shape. The history of the human kind and beyond, told in wind, sound of waves, blemishes burned into the surface, all recorded in a form of a stone.
These are my personal black boxes. The story they tell is neither romantic nor poetic. The only wind I can think of being 'recorded' in my black boxes is that of my father 'passing wind'. Excuse my crudeness. What would this bucket say? Would it tell stories of cold arses in the winter? Would it remind me of smelly contents of its life? Yes, it is what you think.. When you are little and it's -17C outside, in the middle of the night, the bucket comes in handy...
The basin...It was brown enamel, my first boyfriend washed my hair in it, pouring water from a jug down my neck, head, and long hair. The sensual basin. The practical basin. Where I mastered the art of body washing economy. My first experience of Yoga was this basin, because I learned to fold myself in half, just to fit into it. The silent basin, that kept my parents' secrets.
Light was rare and timid on the wall behind the stand. I still remember the texture of the wall. Old wall, it seamed hundreds of years old to me then. In this small, kept together by intention only cottage, the feeling was of something crumbling away.
Nature of change is reliable. My thoughts, memories, emotions flow and alter with time. Amazing thing about paintings, you will never look at one with the same eyes. I gave you a glimpse of my story of these. You will have your own. It is a very nice thought.
Enjoy your day:-)
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