SNU. Meanwhile. SNU. I had begun to look into my photograph albums because part of the desire behind my project was to place my relationship with Jon into context. I had a life before i knew him. And i hoped that giving him space on my life timeline would let me make peace with his death. I was aware that i was still angry with his family, his brother, his brother's wife and his ex-wife. I wanted to work out how much of that anger was justified and could rightly be laid at their door and how much of it was not. I needed to go back into my childhood because certainly the roots of my wound are born from my sisters' bullying, being socially excluded from games and told i was ugly and not good enough. If this happens often enough a child takes on this story as truth. I am not good enough. It was perhaps a bond between Jon and I that he also seemed to have this narrative running through his bloodstream. 
Delving into my photo albums i knew there were pictures i was looking for but also was seeing the pictures differently, as objects as much as images, as captured moments, the frames of the pictures also played a part in my choosing, and the stories maybe, the people yes, but also the physical context how it might look in a print. There were some i picked out that i was not able to make into plates as i'd wished, this is not just because of covid19 but because time and money were never going to allow me to do everything i wanted. But out of about dozen i picked six to work with not because they were better or more worthwhile but because they were the path i took. Initially I made three new photo etched plates. One was baby-me in a deep bath with bubbles, my mother's belly and hands at the side of the bath. My father must have been the photographer. On the edge of the bath are bath toys and cleaning products, the tiles are shiny, its a 1960's bathroom. The second was me and my sisters in a moment of interruption in a formal photographic session. Our neighbours daughter peeps over my shoulder and my middle sister's shoulder, her face against my sister's face which is still posed for the camera, I am looking down at a picture book, absorbed in the book not the action, my older sister is kneeling up, her face bright, eager and sweet. Out of all the other pictures in the series of shots that taken the interruption of the neighbour had obviously disrupted the family dynamic and briefly we are perhaps revealing more than when were sitting posed. The third photo my sons coming down some aeroplane steps. Its a picture known in the family as the "Spain Years" photograph, it's a package holiday picture, has a tacky cardboard frame, i think when we caught the plane home the photos were up on a board at the airport and you could buy the one of you arriving as you left. It has interesting details script and fashion and for my sons is a photo that acts as a prop to familiar comic banter. 
The prints from these pictures were unfortunately none of them great, inking and wiping technique maybe, but also perhaps a lack of skill with aquatinting. Something that came up later in the term and which is perhaps the biggest frustration at not having time to amend before lockdown. My plan on return to uni next term had been to practice aquatinting until i knew how to get it how i wanted it to be. Still i will post some images of the prints in the next blog post. Again i was sampling inks and papers when i made these prints.