One of my biggest issues has been protecting my dad’s work, and my stuff too, from dust. There is a lot of dust that comes in from the balcony. You can see from the photo below that my dad used a plastic wrapping to protect the underneath of his workbenches/storage units. You can also see the amount of dust that had accumulated under a rug in the time since my dad was last there, and when I lifted it up. The plastic wrap worked for him; I guess he could easily get access, and he could see what was in there at all times, and probably lots of other reasons. For me, it was certainly not what I wanted to look at whilst at home, and it didn’t suit the purpose I was going to use those units for. It’s hard to change a space like this and not feel like you’re criticising how they had it before. But as I keep saying to my mum, it’s all about a change of purpose, no judgment, just different needs.

My dad mainly used the underneath of the units in the living room for the storage of new frames, and smaller works like those on the wall in the above left photo. He had three units there, and they consisted of one with drawers, and two with open space underneath (see the left photo underneath for an example of each). The drawers were filled with paper, leaflets for his exhibitions, and small unframed works. For the time being, I have done nothing with the contents of the drawers; it is too much for me to handle a job where I know there will be a lot of things to get rid of in one go. That is the sort of project I will do when I have the space to take the drawers out and make piles of what to keep and what not to. I also think it’s important for me not to do that one alone. But before that is possible, I needed to organise all the paintings that he had stored away in every nook and cranny in the flat and try and fit them into these storage units. There were two more of these storage units in the bedroom, and I moved them out into the living room and placed them on top of two of the other ones already there. As you can see in the photo (below left), my dad had piled paintings above the units, these were quite precarious to remove. Undoing such intricate bindings was a tough one emotionally, as it’s times like these that you see a lot of the person’s personality and habits.

This process, of course, meant that the flat was total chaos for a little while (as you can see in the above right photo), but it allowed me to look through the paintings a little, and to protect them better.

The first thing I did was to put sheeting down on the floor, so that the paintings were protected should any dust or water get under there. I repurposed something that was not going to be useful to me in any other way, but at that time was a little difficult for me emotionally to just throw out. In the photo above on the right, in the top left corner of said photo, you’ll see some plastic boxes piled high. Originally, my dad had a plaster’s table there, with these boxes and other painting equipment underneath and on top. Once again, this looked like a temporary storage solution. I think he often changed the room to suit his needs, as these differed depending on the current style he was creating. On top of the table, underneath the boxes, I found a vinyl tablecloth, covered in paint splashes. Not long-term sentimental, but certainly not an item to get rid of right away for me. But this provided a good solution for protecting the paintings that were going to be stored on the floor under the workbenches. It was structured enough so that I could make a lip, so there was a basin for the paintings to sit in. This was important to protect them from water, should there ever be any spills or leaks. The kitchenette is right up against these units, so water was a big concern for me.

The plastic my dad used to wrap the sides and front of the units would have made a potentially humid environment for them, I wanted to create a little airflow, whilst also protecting them from the dust as, unlike him, I expected them to be covered for longer periods of time. As I’m trying not to spend money where possible, and therefore use the materials already in the flat, I decided to use a roll of canvas that my dad had. He used it to make his own canvases, and I had a little battle in my head about using such materials for this rather than what he had intended them for. However, as I couldn’t see myself making my own canvases any time soon, and I didn’t want to just waste the canvas by throwing it out, I found a way to feel connected to him by using his materials and tools in my own way.

I cut the canvas into three sheets, a little longer than the height of the units, to create a flap at the top so it can be weighted in place. I wrapped the first sheet, starting from the short edge and working my way round to the front, using double sided tape to hold it down initially whilst I worked. I overlapped the three sheets, once again, to provide protection from the elements. I worked from the unit furthest from the balcony, moving towards the balcony. This meant that where the flap opened, it was facing away from the balcony to prevent dust from being blown into the gap. Hopefully, you can see what I mean in the photo below.

I also made a little kickboard out of some MDF. This was not the perfect size, it didn’t need to be, I just needed something solid at ground level to protect the paintings whilst I vacuumed, etc.

The top units were harder to cover, and I’ll go over that in the next post, where I also explain my funny panto curtain.