In Memory of a Friend, 2014–2020
Remembering Vera
Vera was my friend. She died in 2014, in a vehicle accident, at twenty-nine. In the weeks and years after, I made things for her: a banner sewn from fabric leaves her friends sent, prints and wallpaper in her memory, a piece of street art, and her denim jacket turned into a plan for the year. This gathers that work in one place.
The Banner
Vera died in 2014, in a vehicle accident, at twenty-nine. The first thing I made was a banner: her name, VERA, 1985 to 2014, ringed with fabric leaves. She loved kicking through fallen leaves, so I asked everyone who knew her to send a leaf cut from fabric, and I sewed them all into a border around her name. Dozens of them, one from each person who wanted to be in it.
The Prints and the Jacket
In the weeks after, I kept making. A figure of Jesus I drew and screen-printed, a wallpaper designed and hand-printed in her memory, photographed next to the denim jacket her best friend passed on to me. Print work and grief in the same room, at the same time, because making things was the only response I had.
The Street Art
I made a piece of street art for her too, at a street art jam at Wellington Mill studios, from the wallpaper left over from my 3 Wise Monkeys install. Offcuts of a hand-printed design given a second life, pasted up on a wall out in the weather, the kind of quiet, temporary marker that suits a person more than stone does.
A Plan for the Year
On the back of the jacket she gave me, I wrote out my whole plan for 2015, month by month down the denim. She gave it to me before she died, and turning it into a to-do list was a way of taking her along into a hard year, so that getting through it and doing the work were the same thing.
Five Years On
Five years later I found the street-art board again, still up on the boarded doorway of a derelict building, weathered but holding. Street work like this is meant to be temporary, up until it comes down. To find it still there half a decade on felt like more than luck.
More to Come
There is more of this than I have photographs of. A wallpaper that went up at Folk in Didsbury, and a piece made from offcuts that was as raw a grief piece as I have made. When I find the pictures they will be added here.
Questions
Who was Vera?
A friend of mine, who died in 2014 in a vehicle accident, at twenty-nine.
What is the banner made of?
Fabric leaves, one sent by each person who knew her and wanted to be in it, sewn into a border around her name. She loved kicking through fallen leaves.
Is there more of this work?
Yes. There is a wallpaper that went up at Folk in Didsbury and a piece made from offcuts that I have not found photographs of yet. They will be added here when I do.
From the Journal
The Work, Entry by Entry
Dated entries for the pieces made for Vera, from the banner and the street art to finding the board again five years on.