Choices

The Story of the Artichoke

The first choice is the woman.

A young RAF officer chooses my just-married grandmother from across the room, sets a course straight for her, waits to be introduced. My grandfather, who already likes to leave parties early, entrusts his hazel-eyed wife to this handsome pilot. ‘Make sure Babs gets home safe.’ ‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.’

What next. Tipsy picnic lunches on the beaches in Cyprus as the war clatters on in the background. A battle hero drinking champagne from Babs’ shoe. Heat, hilarity. Glittering sea. The faint haze of potential and the light programme sounding from a chunky wireless on the plaid blanket. Choices still to be made, chances to be taken. Maybe.

The pilot is posted abroad, to the East. He returns with a gift for her; another choice. A length of vivid, kingfisher-blue, silk brocade. It gleams like a long stretch of summer river across Babs’ golden arms. She knows it would make a fabulous frock. A chic cocktail frock, perhaps with a coquettish cocktail hat. But it is just a shade too daring. If she has it tailored, as he suggests, this will have a meaning. For him and for her. And for my grandfather, who may frequently be mute, but is not blind.

What to do?

She chooses instead, my darling grandmother, to make something for herself. Deft with a needle, dazzled by the fabric, she selects a kimono pattern. Scissors the fabric slowly, listening to the finality. The cutting off, the falling away. Loose, heavy, sliding down her arms, her flanks, it gleams as if lacquered with sunlight. It brings out the green flecks in her eyes. She loves it. It is made to drop in a pool at her feet, so she can stand, light gold and naked, like Venus rising. She knows exactly what the officer was seeing when he chose it for her. She pulls it close and wraps the matching sash around her narrow waist, tucking herself away, watching herself swaying in the mirror to music only she can hear.

Of course, she never shows the pilot what she made. Only my grandfather gets to enjoy the kingfisher dart of her crossing the verandah in the early dawn, to wriggle her toes in the grass before the sun gets too hot. He never mentions these glimpses, but he hoards them.

Finally, the pilot presents Babs with a charm for her bracelet. A tiny, 24-carat gold di. He invites her to take a chance. Then he vanishes from the picture, posted away. Decades later, she gives the little gold cube, kept safe but never attached to the bracelet, to me. ‘Perhaps you will take the chance,’ she says.

The kimono is put away, with many other things. Paths not followed, doors not opened, words unsaid. It gleams to itself in the closet dark, hanging in a faint trace of L’Air du Temps. In my teens, I try it on and fall in love with it. I am a princess, mermaid, geisha, Mata Hari, all in one. It follows me through the years. I wear it in, I wear it out, and then abruptly, for years, I forget all about it.

Making art is a stream of choices. Colours, forms, brushstrokes, stitches, threads, scale. But the very first choice is the subject. Mine is the globe artichoke plant. I am exploring the poem in the tension between the perfectly controlled geometry of the globes, those neat, tight packets of petals, and the wild abandon of the surging stems and tousled leaves. Its grace is powerful.

Searching through bags and chests of fabrics saved because you never know, I am hunting for the key piece from which the whole story of colours, shapes, stitches and textures will cascade. Then it strikes me. The answer is not in what I saved, but what I have forgotten.

In another century now, I make my own choice, pulling the kimono from my closet. Thinking of Nana, I make the first cut into that shining blue silk for over seventy years. The shearing sound of finality. Done it now.

The reverse of the kimono is as magical as the front, and I wonder again just how it is that the soft stripes of almond pinks and greens underpin a gloss of such radiant turquoise. A weaver’s secret. A gift to me.

The kimono fabric forms the main palette of this piece. I have added sari silk, Venetian brocade, peached cotton and chenille. All these scraps started out as other articles with stories of their own. The threads are from DMC in France, which makes a satisfying circle for someone who may allegedly count Huguenot weavers among her forebears.

The picture is a celebration of the artichoke’s rebellious habit. But the other side of their story, if I can put it that way, honours a more steadfast love.

My embroidery includes both the azure brilliance of the pilot officer’s early shot at heaven, and what outlasted it right into another century; the self-restraint in the subtle, more muted variations of green, old roses and fading amethyst. The gloss on the silk is actually outshone by its reverse; that patina of long companionship, loyalty and honour that shaped a marriage of sixty years and built a family, leading to me and, eventually, this picture.

You will see what you are looking for. That’s your choice.

Summer 2023