This Joseph Cornell-esque assemblage was inspired by a Golliwog coupon I inherited. Golliwog's weren't as popular in America as they were in England and I had no idea what they were. So I did a bit of research and discovered the Golliwog was a character invented by writer and illustrator Florence Kate Upton. In her stories, Golliwog played a benevolent character. Sadly, Upton failed to trademark her invention and Golliwog was hijacked and became best known as the mascot of Robertson's jam and the naughty character in Enid Blyton's book The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls. By the 1960s "golliwog" had become a racist term.

I couldn't shake the idea of the Golliwog - how it started and the connotations with which it's now associated.  It wasn't long before I realized that I needed to make a piece that explored the them of slavery and racism.  The result is the piece pictured above.  It incorporates various found objects, most of which were collected during my daily walks through the English countryside. 

In this body of work I explore sensitive personal family issues such as abuse, alcoholism and gambling.  The main character threading these works together is my Grandmother, Wilma. Having lost her husband only a decade into their marriage, she became a widow with the daunting task of raising four children on her own.  She became a bartender.  And an alcoholic.  In her grief, she turned to a family friend.  An affair ensued and my Grandmother was dealt another blow – she became pregnant, this time with an illegitimate son.  The man with whom she’d had the affair had a wife and family of his own.  My Uncle grew up not knowing his father – indeed, not wanting to – and likely playing neighborhood games with half brothers and/or sisters without even knowing it. My mother and her brothers grew up in a house of grief, depression,  alcoholism and abuse and I grew up hearing their stories about their grim childhood.  Oddly, these stories were often not told in unresolved agony, but with a hint of dark humor.   
 
Most of the imagery I’ve used in these works is quite personal. There are maps of my homeland America, specifically the Midwest (important not just because they signify where I grew up, but also because they symbolize my journey through life as I’ve moved a staggering number of times in my life, back and forth between the East Coast and the Midwest of America and most recently to England); product labels ubiquitous in America, such as Crisco (a type of shortening my Grandmother used to cook everything from cakes to pork chops) and some less so, such as Raleigh cigarettes (a brand my Grandmother used to smoke when I was little which came with stamps she collected and one time filled an entire section of her kitchen cupboard); and most importantly personal family photographs some of which are more happy than others but which have – to me – a shadow of sadness lurking over them.  You will also find references to gambling and drinking.  Less obvious is my use of paper cranes and clothes hangers; the former a
symbol of innocence (and its loss), perseverance and hope and the latter a direct reference to what my Grandmother used to beat her children. 
 
While these pieces are very personal to me, I believe they highlight universal themes and contain elements which nearly everyone can identify with on one level or another, be it abuse, alcoholism or even memories.  My hope is that
they are left ambiguous enough to engage the viewer in such a way that they want to keep looking and reflect upon them with their own personal histories in mind.