finished a painting of my grandmother's old house and she didn't recognise it
So I finally worked up the nerve to paint my grandmother's childhood home, the one she grew up in, in a little town near Mangalore. She's told me about it so many times. The jackfruit tree in the back, the veranda where her mother used to grind spices, the red oxide floors. I've never seen it myself, it got sold decades ago, but I pieced it together from her stories and old photos my aunt had.
Finished it last week and showed her yesterday. And she just looked at it for a long time and said "which house is this?"
I explained, and she went quiet. Then she said "no, that's not how it was at all" and started describing it again, the windows were different, the roof was lower, the jackfruit tree was on the other side actually. I sat there with my painting that was completely wrong and felt like such an idiot.
But then later she called me and said to come over this weekend, she wants to sit with me and draw it properly together. She said "I'll tell you where every brick goes, you put it down."
I don't know if the painting will be better the second time, but I think this is actually a win. Just not the kind you frame right away.
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Ah jaysus, that's a tough one. But here's the thing, the way memory works, especially for a place you loved as a child, it's not a photograph. It's a feeling, a smell, the weight of the air in a certain room. She's been carrying that house around in her head for decades and it's become something more real than any photo could capture.
I had something like this with a print I did of my granda's farm. He looked at it and said "the gate was on the other side, boy." And I'd used a photo he himself had given me. But in his head, that gate had always been on the left, and that was the truth of it for him.
The fact she didn't recognise it doesn't mean you got it wrong. It might mean you painted the house that exists in the world, and she's been living in the one that exists in her heart. Two different things. And sure maybe that's its own kind of tribute, you went looking for a house that's already gone, and you found the one that was actually there.
this is so well put honestly. and your granda's farm story, the gate being on the wrong side even though you used his own photo, that's the thing isn't it. the version of a place you carry around in your body just supersedes whatever's objectively true.
i painted my childhood bedroom once from memory. the window was on the south wall in my head, light coming in a certain way. my mom saw it and was like "that room faced north, honey, you could never get that afternoon sun" and i was so convinced. but i think what i was remembering was how the light felt in that room, not where it actually came from.
the OP's grandmother not recognising it at all must've stung on impact though. i hope she comes back to it in a few days and sees something familiar she didn't see the first time. sometimes those paintings land late.
that bit about the light feeling a certain way even if the direction was wrong, yes, exactly. that's what i was trying to explain to my grandmother, but she just kept looking at the painting and shaking her head.
the window thing your mom pointed out, that's so interesting. because what we remember isn't the architecture, it's the experience of being in that room at a certain time of day. the window faces south in your head because that's where the light was most alive for you.
my grandmother finally said "the jackfruit tree was closer to the well" and i had to just laugh and put the brush down for the day. 🙂
Ah this is lovely, and your granda's farm, the gate being on the wrong side even from his own photo, that's exactly it, na. The house they carry is more real than any reference image. My grandmother's version of her home has red oxide floors that were somehow always cool even in summer, and a jackfruit tree that was "the biggest one in the neighbourhood," and I don't think any photo or painting can match that. She's not wrong. She just lives in a version of it I'll never see.
Anyway. I'm glad I painted it. Even if she didn't recognise it, she talked about it for an hour after. So maybe that was the point all along.