Over the last month or so, I’ve taken down the structure that held all of my dad’s paintings in my flat and moved everything to my mum’s. This procedure was really important because it was taking up about 50% of the space here, because my flat is small. However, as my mum’s flat is bigger and laid out in a way where they didn’t have to take up half the living room area, it’s allowed for them to be stored there and for her to still have space that is hers. I was certainly starting to feel the burden of housing so much in such a small space, especially when it’s not just me in the flat.

The other reason for moving the paintings was to go through them. The primary reason for this was to decide which ones I would use to decorate the dining room of my partner’s restaurant. Of course, I am very lucky to have this opportunity, to know someone who has the space to display my dad’s work, but I know that we wouldn’t have been doing it if my dad’s work wasn’t good enough to display in such a way.

Going through my dad’s work was a mixed bag of emotions. At first, it was difficult. The first pieces I sorted seemed so dark, which, combined with the daunting task of moving my dad’s work, added to the depressing feelings I had that week. It was a strange task; I had become quite frustrated by the works taking up so much room, but also felt guilty for feeling this, and sad at the thought of moving them. I was changing the space, and that was changing something of my dad’s, even though we’d quite significantly changed the space already, before it was mainly moving his things around. This was taking them out of the place.

Once I had started, I really got into it. I discovered a lot more paintings that gave me a happy feeling, and the dark ones now looked intriguing and no longer depressing.

When I had stored them in my own flat, I hadn’t planned the order in which they would be put away. The bottom layer was already there, and I was having to pull out the works layer by layer from where they were previously stored. So, in my first attempt at storage, they weren’t stored by size or style, just more or less in the order we found them. There wasn’t the space to organise them and work out where things would fit best.

Now I had the room to sort them properly. My mum and I organised them in her living space, and I was able to really get to know them, the styles by the years, etc. Together, we decided which level to put things on, for the convenience of access and to make sure that they would be secure and not get damaged. We had to be a bit inventive with the very tall ones that we placed at the top of the shelves. This was the only place they would fit, but I had to make sure they wouldn’t topple off the end. Making sure they could stand up and not really lean on each other, to prevent damage, was important. Once again, avoiding spending money, I used some wooden batons I already had and some plywood of my dad’s to create a brace so that if they tilted and toppled, they would not go over completely and could be reset easily.

The job is not completely finished; there were some that were just too big to be housed in that space. So, for now, they are in my mum’s living room. Behind the big printing press that we will be selling. There are only a handful of these ones, but they certainly need some thought put into what to do with them.

During the process of storing, I put aside a bunch to choose from for the restaurant. I initially chose a variety of brightly coloured ones, but also put in some of the darker ones and some prints that were simply gorgeous. I had an idea of what I thought would work together, but I also knew that it would completely depend on the space.

Stephan and I painted the restaurant shortly after, and we then took the selection of paintings and prints to the restaurant to see what would look good there. It was immediately obvious, due to the teal coloured walls, that a lot of the paintings wouldn’t work as the blues in them just didn’t sit right. So we narrowed the remaining options down, and then called in the cavalry, my mum, to help decide the final selection. The three of us worked really well together. Listening to each other’s ideas and throwing out slightly more rogue options for combinations of pictures, we eventually found a style that we all agreed worked really well. I’m glad that I stood my ground a bit with the ones I really thought would work in the space, when the other two were unsure how they sat with the other pictures. And I am glad that I listened when they suggested moving ones we’d already thought we’d found a place for.

For my mum, it was an intense emotional experience, but I think she’s proud that his work is being displayed again. I know she worries now that he is gone, that it’s hard to keep his work relevant. It would be too difficult for her emotionally to try and promote is work, or to hold an exhibition herself for him. But in seeing them displayed again and hearing the wonderful comments about them, I know she gets satisfaction from that.