First Song

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,

Onward! the sailors cry;

Carry the lad that's born to be King

Over the sea to Skye

Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,

Thunderclouds rend the air;

Baffled, our foes stand by the shore,

Follow they will not dare.

Collages exploring the process of remembering the first songs that were sung to me as a child. My early memories are filled with old English nursery rhymes and lullabies sung to me by my mother. I have strong associations of these songs to the colours and fabrics of the house I was born in, the pink of my bedroom, the awful patterned curtains, the softness of my grandmother's knitting... I particularly remember hearing the Skye Boat song - a scottish folk song - and it transporting me away to foreign, wild landscapes away from the safety of my own surroundings. The process of creating these montages of reminiscent imagery forced me to fragment together the essence of these childhood emotions. The undertaking of a collage, like piecing together a memory, is a negotiation. Yet it is still difficult to know for sure what is real and what is pure nostalgia.