Jean Gerrard

My name is Jean Gerrard. I am married with two grown up daughters and work as a Physiotherapy assistant. I have always loved fabric. From about the age of 7/8 I used to spend my pocket money on remnants of fabric from the market to make my dolls clothes. Fabric can inspire me. I will see a fabric and have to buy it.

Over the years I have made all sorts of clothes both by knitting and sewing. I have also enjoyed making items for my home and for other people – curtains, cushions, bedding, lampshades, recovered settee and chairs. These things were always made to a pattern or an adaptation of a pattern. They needed to look perfect when finished.

Finding Experimental Textile Design has been very exciting, sometimes scary as well because you have to be much freer to come up with ideas. I love the use of textures and not having flat surfaces. There are so many materials, techniques and colour to experiment with. We have used natural and man-made fabrics, plastic, metal, paper and card. In fact anything can be used to create a piece of work. I find it great fun learning (it was never this much fun at school) and being part of a group is very productive we all inspire each other.

Necrotex

To tackle the subject of Necrotex I felt I had to look at my own feelings about death and funerals. My perception of Necrotex is looking at the use of textiles in association with death. Most of us are connecting it to our own death, funeral and the celebration of ours lives.

Death

I am not afraid of death. I have accepted that it will happen to me one day. I am glad that it didn’t happen 18 years ago. I have been able to fulfil my life’s ambition to raise my daughters to adult hood. I am afraid of pain and degenerative illness. We only have one life. I do not believe in reincarnation or the after life. Therefore we have to make the most of our life and we must never put of doing or saying something if we can do it now. You really don’t know what is round the corner. I am aware that some people really cannot talk about death whether it is to do with their own death, someone they knows death or just the general subject.

My attitude comes from my experiences of death and illness.
Deaths:
Granddad 1970
Godmother 1974
Dad (from cancer) 1974 aged 64 when I was just 19
Grandma 1975
Mother (from cancer) 1982 aged 64
Mother in law 1993 aged 84
Father in law 2002 aged 94. I had known him for 281/2 years. Therefore I had known him for longer than my parents.
Close Uncle March 2005.

Near encounters with death:

I was treated for malignant melanoma in 1987
My younger daughter nearly died from a burst appendix in 1994.

Death/illness

I worked for 71/2 years for an organisation called Crossroads. My role was to give carers respite on a regular basis. I would look after their relative for a few hours so that they could have some time to themselves. A few families I visited every week for 5-7 years. Over my time with Crossroads I got to know a lot of people. Each household was copying with impairments, illness and disease. I came into contact with a whole spectrum of conditions. The clients ranged in age from a few months to over 100. I love talking to people. The job gave me opportunities to listen to some very interesting life histories and to admire how people can cope with what life throws at them. Unfortunately I also had to attend 3-4 funerals a year. Each one was different. One of the best parts of the funerals was to hear about the person’s life. Sometimes it was quite surprising. It was always a very difficult time for the relatives, but the experience would be particularly moving if a relative could make a speech.

Famous peoples Funerals

There are 2 famous peoples funerals that I remember vividly. The first was Winston Churchill’s. I remember going up to London with my Dad. We saw the main procession, the boat going down the Thames and the train with the coffin in, left Waterloo station at the same time as ours. I remember the spectacle of it all.

The second was the death and funeral of Princess Diana. The nation / world was shocked and there was an outpouring of emotion. We went up to London to lay some flowers. The atmosphere, the crowds of people, the smell of flowers and the sight of candles and nightlights everywhere were just an amazing experience. Then I spent all day in front of the television watching every aspect of her funeral day. It was a very moving day.

Funerals

I believe people should discuss what kind of funeral they want with their nearest and dearest. None of us know when we will die. It is not something that you can easily discuss with someone if you know they are going to die or if by discussing it they think they are going to die. One of the hardest things to do when a close one dies is sitting at the funeral directors or talking to the funeral officiator trying to decide what the dead person would have wanted. It only really matters to those that are left but you always feel it should be influenced by the wishes of the one that has died.

Music

Music can have a huge effect on a funeral. The music, the lyrics and how it is presented.

My own funeral

The worst thing that could happen at my funeral would be that no one would turn up. That would be a reflection of how poorly I had interacted with other people when I was alive.

Ideally I would like only flowers or foliage from people’s gardens at my funeral. I like the idea that they could be used as arrangements for other people afterwards rather than just laying somewhere dieing from neglect. I would be quite happy if people took them home again or gave them to someone. They would only be at my funeral to brighten the occasion. Or they could plant something in their garden or have a pot plant in their home in remembrance of me.

I want to be cremated. I would like a service, but possibly not religious. I am not sure about music and songs. I would like to enter by R.E.M.’s Everyone Hurts, have Celine Dion Titanic song for the disappearance of the coffin and a piece of happy music to leave by. I am gradually changing my mind about having a religious service so I am not sure about hymns/ songs for everyone to sing.

Possible readings

“Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we still are. Call me by my old familiar name; speak to me in the easy way, which you always used. Put no difference in your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was, let it be spoken without effort, without the trace of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was; there is unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well”

Henry Scott Holland
1847- 1918
Canon of St. Pauls Cathedral

A Smile costs nothing but gives much. It enriches those who receive without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None is so rich or mighty that he can get along without it, and none is so poor but that he can be made rich by it. A smile creates happiness in the home, fosters goodwill in business and is the countersign of friendship. It brings rest to the weary. Cheer to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad and it nature’s best antidote for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged or stolen, for it is something that is of no value to anyone until it is given away. Some people are too tired to give you a smile. Give them one of yours, as none needs a smile so much as he who has no more to give.

Anon

Ideas for my exhibition pieces

In my life people and nature have given me the greatest happiness. My ashes would go in a very personalised box e.g. incorporating some of my hair in the decoration of its exterior.

The box would then go in a casket. The casket would be covered in very colourful flowers, because of my love of nature. The lining of the casket will have all the names of people that I can remember from through out my life. I hate change. I have stayed in touch with a lot of people from my past – friendship is very important to me. As the following list shows:

• I have still got a very good friend who was in the same playgroup as me.
• I have kept in contact with 6 people from senior school.
• I have remained very close to one person from six-form college.
• I am still in contact with four people from my first full time job – including my husband.
• I am still in contact with 4 people from 2nd job. One of whom I see regularly.
• I am still in contact with many people I got to know as my children were growing up and from my last two previous jobs.

I think my idea for a flowered covered casket comes from the fact that it is very important to me to feel safe and secure. I love the idea of a walled secret garden. In fact shrubs and trees surround my own back garden. These are spaces with protection around them. My casket would therefore be a wall around me covered in foliage and flowers. Inside the casket there will be all the names of the people that have helped be feel safe during my life. I would also like to have a guardian angel watching over me. She would be my protector in death.