A Romantic decision
The young architect
Mother and child
Misrepresented
Growth will happen here
In search of a home
Old tools
The Architect
Three babies under three
Planning
Into the walls
Termite dreams
Stage 1 denial - (the modernist woman)
Stage 2 anger
Stage 3 bargaining - (the masons)
Stage 4 depression - (the party)
Stage 5 acceptance
The terror of design
Farewell to all that is tangible
Held by him
A Romantic decisionThis home was a romantic decision for them both. They fell in love with its dark timber architraves, wooden floors, stained glass windows, the inglenook where they would light a fire.
The young architectHe was a modernist at heart, with the brightest of eyes. A lover of timber and skilled with his tools. He fell in love with a dear old house and it’s wild garden, where his children would play in autumn leaves.He would bring his youthful creativity to this home, build a slippery-dip and a doll’s house for his children. He would paint and sculpt and create, and he would build his family a home.
Mother and childThe expectant mother, awaiting twins, was also caring for a toddler.Passers-by who wandered along the low fence line of the front garden would be told “My mummy’s having two babies”.
MisrepresentedShe would claim ground, playing boxes on old graph paper in the sunroom. She let me drop eye drops into her eyes as she lay in her bed at night. She liked frozen persimmons and pickled onions.She had watched two kind husbands die.Now three generations in this home. Perhaps this is how it is meant to be.
Growth will happen hereA grand wisteria covering the front porch and humming with spring bees. An old liquid amber tree singing with cicadas through the summer dusk. White ghost. Cherrynose. Green Grocer. Black Prince. Floury Baker.A garden for growing a family.
In search of a homeThe semiotics of the termite, or, how meaning was made here.They migrated one night from the old firewood stacked up on the fence line. Hungry for more, they sort shelter in our shelter.Dropping their wings at the windowsills, like small cloakrooms for these tiny creatures. A sign they had found their new home.Then termite holes scattered along the bearing beams. Quiet markers of action & inaction.
Old toolsHis purpose was based on the values of time and skill and effort and craftsmanship, use the tools as they were intended. Make sure you put them back where you found them. Wash your brush out properly. Turpentine, then water; run the water clear.But we learn the tools to unlearn them, we push them to see how far they can go before they bend, and then past breaking. This is purpose enough. Not chaos. But play.And the line between artist and tool blurs little by little, as we collaborate, we blend, and we become. Imagine, dream, generate… the past fuelling energy in the present, and the future will make sense of it all.
The ArchitectLe Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Harry Seidler. All the architects he looked up to and who he aspired to be.
Three babies under threeThe mothering experience can give and take so much concurrently. In amongst the dreams for her children, sits a mother with dreams of her own. Something one can only fully grasp once they too live through it, and feel the soft retreat of personal plans in favour of the needs of a child. She found she could not untangle these new parts of herself.In the thick of three children under three, she sat stunned by both the slow muddy minutes and the speeding years of time.
PlanningWith a set square, ruler, and compass, he would ideate and plan his home at the drafting table late into the night. Measure twice cut once.
Into the wallsAll the unspoken muttering of stud wall sounds. They had made their way into the timber and we listened to them gorge.
Termite dreamsAn architect woke in the night to hear the sounds of munching in the walls. Unknown numbers of holes in his creation. Untold damage to his broken heart.
Stage 1 denial - (the modernist woman)Form follows function, this was all a dream.
Stage 2 angerScreams into pillows in the quiet night. He cannot work under these conditions.
Stage 3 bargaining - (the masons)The fraternal order of free and accepted Masons would come to place radioactive power into the nests, and track the atomic movement of tiny feet, beep, beep, beep, through the beams and stud walls of the home.Bargaining with these insects to move along.
Stage 4 depression - (the party)At the birthday party while children ate cake, the termites ate too, everyone content with their meals.These thoughts of insect degustation ran through her mind as she cleared the table that afternoon, and handed out party bags to tired children ready to for naps.Grief, that deep dwelling beast, trickled wet down her face into the washing-up, salting the suds, and bleaching the tea towels, drying up her dreams.
Stage 5 acceptanceNew paths to walk. New choices to make.Just like the termites, they were in search of a new home now.
The terror of designOnce your heart is broken with a disappointment so heavy, it will be hard to trust yourself again. He went on to design plans for another house, over and over he’d plan, but he’d never act upon his designs again. Heart sore and stuck, he grew old and weary.
Farewell to all that is tangibleTermites take up home in his mind, eating away at his memories, as fast as I can try to gather them. He knows they are there, and then sometimes he is unaware. All this painful beauty.We turn at some point and make our way back to the earth.
Held by himThese are the tools he once held, and were held by his father, and his father’s father. They collaborated with him to record his creativity, his craftsmanship and skill. Together they built a house.No longer able to guide them as he once could, though they glove-fit in his tired hands, he can only turn them over in his gentle mind.
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