Angela Readman: The museum of ordinary things

All we are left with are ordinary things,
organisation of a bric-a-brac life.
The things that become you,
we don’t know what to do with.
Evidence of what we cannot name,
bagged and tagged without explanation.
The days between we do not see,
and cannot meet you there.

Frank Sinatra in the same envelope
as an eyeshadow jar, screw topped with care,
dusted in silver Moroccan sand.
The vinyl you kept for some reason
long after the turn table became back street art.
Toby jugs of earrings, pins and needles,
white ribbon, ice-cream tubs of buttons
and nothing but blue silky thread.
Betting slips filed in the back of your armchair
archived, loops on pink paper framed
and mounted, as if they were love letters.
Beside endless unsettling carrier bags
a flower delivery card, with dated design,
the inscription bleached out with time.
And hairgrips in a urine sample jar,
that don’t make sense,
imply you never took the test.

The curator assembles her
in small wooden boxes, like art galleries
we walk around quietly, and peer in.
Touch the glass coffins of artefacts
as if a chosen one could wake you up.
An old leather roller-skate in a plant pot
and a wheelchair in the same display.
Smooth manila paper you wanted to touch.
Neatly typed labels of her life,
in an exhibition called Just a housewife,
that tries to give the game away.
Informative captions of
Proud of her family, Mother of six,
Lived for her holidays, once a year.

unforgettable love for a boy called Pan

As a child the story of Peter Pan captivated my heart and I knew even so young this will remain evergreen. Inspiration for all my work developed from the narrative interplay of imposed stories and references given to objects, for example the thimble and acorn exchanged as a kiss by Peter and Wendy.


Objects used in a mundane fashion to elevate and capture every day implications strengthen my outlook for creativity; a needle and thread used to re-sew a shadow, a broken time piece defines adulthood and a spoon intended for medicine.

My work in turn laced with influence and the notion of memories, as in Neverland one will never grow up, but can also forget ones past. It is important for me to document and preserve the fleeting moments capture by life. Something we all do as humans is invest a dialog to inanimate objects; ‘this is a beach pebble found on a family holiday when we all got stuck in sand and used drift wood to dig our selves out’, to anyone else its just another rock.

The memory aids I fabricate sustain time sometimes of a lost boy sometimes happy thoughts but I know this ‘to live will be an awfully big adventure’…