Fragments of experience

When I was talking to a friend over the phone, I realised that I was unconsciously drawing on random pieces of paper unplanned, messy sketches that required less thought and were almost more like little visual rants while I was talking. This small action made me think back to my mum and older sister.

Growing up, we had a landline telephone, strategically placed next to a small couch and a ‘telephone table’ that had just enough space for the phone and a few other things. I remember watching my mum or my sister whenever they were on the phone with their friends.

They would always end up drawing random little sketches on an envelope, or whatever piece of paper happened to be closest to them.

For some reason, one day I decided to actually take a look at these sketches. As a kid, I think I had expected them to come out with some beautiful drawings. Instead, I was surprised to see a bunch of little fragments of things that never fully became thoughts. They were random and unfinished, and sometimes did not really look like anything at all.

But I think that is what stayed with me. They were not made with the intention of creating art. They were just something that happened while they were talking, thinking, listening, or even just passing time. And somehow, I think that makes them feel more human to me.

It was for this reason that I chose an envelope as the canvas for my piece. The yellow background that you see is actually the envelope itself, which I wanted to use as a way of representing those ordinary, everyday moments that I remember from my childhood.

To me, journaling is another form of expression that feels so rooted in the human experience. Ever since I was younger, I remember collecting scraps of paper, leaflets, and stickers from wherever I went. I always had this necessity to take a little piece of wherever I had been with me, almost like

proof that I had been there. That is why I loved the concept of junk journals so much. Scraps from a moment, a receipt, a photograph, a ticket, or even something as simple as a piece of packaging can be stuck onto a page and suddenly hold a memory that would otherwise be forgotten.

That is why I decided that, for my piece, I wanted to fuse these two ideas together and create something that felt like an experience pasted into a journal. I wanted to use the envelope as my canvas and fill it with little fragments, much like the drawings I remember seeing as a child, but also like the scraps I have collected from my own experiences.

The envelope itself becomes part of the memory, rather than simply being a surface to draw on. I wanted the whole piece to feel like a collection of moments that had been gathered together and kept, almost like something you might find tucked away in an old journal.