Grandma’s Shoes © 2009 Michelle Basic Hendry
I always thought that, perhaps one day, I might have an old house of my own.
Recently, I decided to have a look at a couple of old houses to see if saving one close to the edge might be something I could do. I am a big fan of the rescued old house, a fan of the return from the brink. I found myself in great emotional turmoil in the early spring over an old place that could not be saved. I celebrate those who seem to turn their lives upside down to restore and recover an unloved house.
Houses are like a metaphor for a life. They are built shiny and new to shield and protect; they get worn and middle aged, are sometimes renovated, and eventually descend into old age, dereliction, and death. Some go out quickly, others slowly, succumbing to rot. Their path and purpose, look and style are as variable as our own. In them, there is celebration and loss, renewal and destruction.
Everything dies.
One of my favourite novels that I was, incidentally, forced to read in high school was Margaret Laurence’s “The Stone Angel”. It is the story of an old woman, facing her final days. She reflects on her life and truly sees herself for the first time. Hers is a path to acceptance – of her life and her death. Perhaps, without our realization and consciousness of mortality, we can never really experience our lives. At 16, I was only vaguely aware of this fragile organization of time and space because there was more ahead of me than behind.
Life must be lived forward, but can only be understood backwards.
~ Søren Kierkegaard
My work seems to center around that final, terminal stage – the descent. I often only see a house or a church, for that matter, at the point in which renovation is unlikely and death, of a kind, is immanent. I don’t think it is because I dwell on death, but, rather I seek the beauty buried beneath the rubble of the forlorn, and the hope that lies in wait, but can only be seen in its reflection.
I am obsessed with the abandoned, the crumbling plaster, peeling paint, cast off coat or moldering chair. These things simply are. They are predestined to exist as objects on the path of others. They serve a purpose and then cease to exist in the eyes of those who once used them.
My work is often labeled sentimental, as if the feelings or memories of the old farm are silly and unimportant compared to the greater world of artistic angst and suffering. We fear insanity in the world but then we elevate it in our art as the outlet for our confusion in the industrial and post-industrial society we have created. Perhaps some of that abstracted angst is simply a misidentification of the loss of that connection to the Earth, held in most recent memory by the Family Farm. And as we wistfully remember it, we murder its legacy beneath strips of pavement and garage doors.
My houses sit in fields awaiting the machinery that will pass them permanently into history, and for some, beyond the last living memory of their very existence.
Perhaps our houses are more than shelter. Perhaps, I cannot save every house, or even one from their fate. Perhaps I am not supposed to. Perhaps I am simply here to remember…. At least for now.
Jennifer Rose
/ August 6, 2009I’d love to have the money where we could fix an abandoned house, maybe not a listed building as that would cost an arm and a leg to re-do but I think older houses have so much character that its worth trying to save them
I think you are saving the houses. They will live on in our paintings
lINDA Blondheim
/ August 6, 2009a great post today. I share your feelings about old places.
Love,
Linda
Debra Percival
/ August 6, 2009Beautiful image. How was the person when they last wore the shoes? Did they know that they would not be putting them on again? Wonderful story image.
Lana
/ August 7, 2009Those old houses had a lot more character than the carbon cardboard cutouts of modern society, too.
In a Celtic sense, those old houses retain the memories of everything that happened there. Beyond that, the very land, itself, retains the memory of the house. To the Celts, nothing ever truly “died.”
eddie
/ August 7, 2009Michelle,
This is an amazingly eloquent
post…right to the heart of it..beautifully said, I’m empathetic with your point of view. Death and decay are what defines us..such a prevalent notion in many cultures especially the latin based . Not so in this materialistic western world we live in here.
I’m celtic by root definition and as Lana alludes…there is a deep emotional,sympathetic spirit in this old culture.
To be in touch with the spirit of things ,to be moved , to cry or be swept away with joy
is to be valued above all else.
As the native americans say…there is a heart in the tree. In the wooden house resides the spirit of the trees and the energy of all who’ve passed its portals.
So revel in what you know and feel for them. Sleep with your sentiments for it all passes as a dream just as old homes crumble into dust.
Sarah Lynch
/ August 7, 2009Lovely post.I share your need to preserve the old, shabby and unloved. My own house is a case in point. Trying to repaint the ageing clapboard, on the West wall I decided that there wasn’t a board worth saving. we are now re-siding (in wood) that wall. In the process we found the carpenter ant’s nest…….. And the beat goes on.
Debbie
/ August 8, 2009Beautiful Post Michelle! I too am drawn to old buildings and their belongings/stories. Reminds me of my days as a child when I would go to my great uncles’ homes in Cape Breton without electricity and running water! Loved their old places and the mystery that went with them. Those experiences still inform my work today.
Thanks for sharing ;D Your love of these buildings shows in your beautiful work!
Julie
/ August 8, 2009Lovely post. The homes may be old, but hold memories and history that everyone can learn from.
kaslkaos
/ August 8, 2009Beautifully written, thoughtful reading. The word ‘sentimental’ has been cheapened by the commerce that exploits it. If your work is described as such, it surely refers to it’s oldest purest meaning. If not, there are those in the art world who are blinded by their prejudice.
Michelle (Artscapes)
/ August 9, 2009Thanks for the thoughtful comments everyone. I hesitated to post this, but, in the end, I needed to. I am glad I did.
soulMerlin
/ August 9, 2009Hi Michelle ~ A most expressive post. You’ve written it so beautifully and it’s a pleasure to read, especially as it shows such empathy.
The photograph at the head is stunning – even now I can’t be sure if it’s a photo or a painting.
I lived my early childhood in an old house by the river. I went back years later and walked through the abandoned rooms. Some transfers I had stuck on the fireplace were still there and it was as if the past was calling.
The old house has gone now, replaced by a monument to commerce (British Home Stores) but it still lives in my memory.
Last year a saw an expensive book about my home town. I looked in and found a photograph of the old house – I bought the book.
Yes – You are “here to remember” but also to record and comment and interpret through your work – who knows, someone who lived in one of your houses will see it in one of your paintings or photographs and be as happy as I was to see it once more.
xhenry
Alan
/ August 12, 2009We are all of like mind it seems.
Oh to win the lottery, I would buy every house could find!
Until then all we can do is document, so that when someone, sometime in the future, says “do you remember the old place that used to be here”?
We can say ‘yes’ and show them a photograph/painting.
Nothing dies while there are those to remember.
Alan (in Guelph)
Michelle
/ August 15, 2009Henry – It is a photograph – I am not that good!
I hope that some may recognize the places and feel good. That would make me happy!
Alan – Yes the lottery would be great – but even then – to choose!
Robn Easton
/ August 26, 2009My dear Michelle, I apologize for being so slow in commenting here. I’ve been to your site several times and each time something at home came up and I was unable to comment.
But I wanted you to know that I LOVE this very emotional and poignant post. It touched me deeply. I feel very kindred to you and resonate so much with your feelings for these old abandoned places.
As I’ve told you before I seem almost addicted to them. I could make a whole career out of traveling around the country (especially the northeast) photographing and exploring abandoned houses, schools, churches and so forth. Almost any old abandoned building. They do connect me to guts and soul of both the Earth and humanity in way that our ‘new modern’ society does NOT at all. They express both the reality of life and the reality of death for me. AND the powerful fact that we cannot escape death and must LIVE fully each day because Death awaits soon enough. AND the reality that Earth, like Death, reclaims everything….in the end.
I love the power of those feelings. These old abandoned places are raw in their emotion and expression of all these realities. I think many people fear and avoid them for these reasons.
I revel in the beautiful crafted words and thoughts here:
“Perhaps some of that abstracted angst is simply a misidentification of the loss of that connection to the Earth, held in most recent memory by the Family Farm. And as we wistfully remember it, we murder its legacy beneath strips of pavement and garage doors.”
Dang, Michelle you are so multi-talented: as a painter, a photographer and a writer….and all equally as powerful.
This photo here knocks my socks off. I have been back to look at it several times since you posted it. I gasped when I first saw it. Tears came immediate to my eyes. It is palpable with emotion, history, smells, senses, longing, memories…
I really can’t begin to tell you how talented you are. A soul who captures all this, who SEES all this is SOME amazing soul. You. I think the more you follow this path the more powerful your work becomes. You are expressing something from deep inside you, which mean others feel that same depth through your work.
Much love,
Robin