A Mouse Made from Found Things

A Mouse Made from Found Things                      

I had kept a Makey-box as a child. In it was anything I’d collected to make other things with: felt, hessian, soft cotton, cellophane, lollipop sticks, thread, rainbow felt-tip pens, coloured paper. I worked out that leaf shapes could become ears. Two sides, cut from scraps of material, stitched together with a needle and thread, a bit of cotton wool to pad them out. Three more leaves, and I had a snout, something knobbly on the end, then whiskers - more thread. I didn't know the proper way to make a mouse. I didn't need to. I could look at a thing and think: how can I bring it into form, give it shape, let it live? I never asked whether I was allowed. I didn't wait to know how. And I had no certainty. I was given the freedom to find out. I thought: which things could be other things? The mouse had dungarees, a checked red tablecloth scrap for a T-shirt, little brown booties, and a yellow plaited tail. My dad tapped the side of his head. “You can make up anything you like in here,” he'd said. “It’s free”. So, I did. There was always something to make. I had clay that would air dry, and shaped between my fingers, it became a pot with a sad face I had glimpsed in the street. Paint spinning on the artist's wheel, colours flowing into one another. My Makey-box mind is filled with found things I've seen, heard, tasted, smelt, intuited, or felt. I'm putting them together, adding, embellishing, transforming, finding out what else they can become. Making something I can live with.