I began this residency by researching heirlooms. I was interested in how objects could hold memories, and how symbols could trigger specific emotions. I went through my grandparents' attic and found various photos and materials. Since I had recently moved back to Bangkok I was able to examine all of those objects with a new lens. Going through my childhood via objects as an adult brought up many memories I didn’t know I had. At the same time I was experimenting with approaching artmaking from a playful perspective. I encouraged myself to let go of my perfectionism and recapture how I felt doodling as a kid. I drew with my non-dominant hand. I stuck paper under my desk and scribbled.
All that rummaging through the attic made me miss my grandmother on my Japanese side. She passed almost exactly a year ago. I began journaling a lot about her. How I wish I knew her life better, and how the version of her that I know is personal to just me. She taught me how to knit and she was a wonderful calligrapher. She knew so many crafts but I never grew up calling her creative. Younger me hadn’t associated ‘traditionally feminine crafts’ with creativity.
Since I found some yarn that she gave me from the summer she taught me how to knit, I decided to pick the hobby back up. My practice involves a lot of repetition, and I enjoy the meditative nature of it. I decided to leave my small mistakes instead of going back to fix them. I liked the imperfections. Letting my mind quiet down while knitting actually allowed me to remember memories that I had forgotten about. I wrote them down as I went and acknowledged how grateful I was for them.
I continued having fun with my project to see where it led. I found more yarn, this time ones my mother bought me when I was little. I found ribbon and origami paper. I kept making squares/rectangles of yarn, ribbon, and paper that I wanted to write excerpts from my diary on. It started to look like materials for a patchwork blanket. To me it reminded me of the futon I would sleep on when I would visit my grandparents’ house every summer. It reminded some of my friends of their grandmother too. But for them it was because their grandmother made quilts. Although slightly different it warmed my heart to know that there was some sort of universal grandmother experience related to textiles.
I have decided to further my project by attaching my tiles together to create a blanket shape. They are temporarily put together so that I can further experiment with their forms. I will continue to write down more memories that come back to me while rearranging my squares.
Meredith Toyama is a visual artist from Japan and Thailand, currently based in Bangkok. They graduated from the University of New South Wales with a degree in Fine Arts, specialising in painting and moving image. With their primary medium of expression being painting and drawing, Toyama’s practice seeks to externalise their internal world, showcasing how one perceives and expresses their thoughts, as well as how we share space and emotions. Their work presents itself in the form of life lessons, observations of the self, and reflections of their relationship with others.