Kathleen Vaughan, Visual Art - The Heirloom Series

The Heirloom Series (1993-94) is an exploration of my grandparents' lives and times, and their continuing resonances in my own. The works connect my grandparents' individual choices with Canadian social trends of the early twentieth century -- the settlement of Ontario's north; the development of corporate culture; the rise and fall of the railway; the enfranchisement of women. Born in 1883/1884, my grandparents participated in these and other major currents of their time. However, as much as narrate particular histories, each work of the Heirloom Series aims to offer an emotional experience of the person it represents.

The Heirloom Series incorporates family, archival, and medical photography as well as excerpts from historical and personal texts (including a family account written by my Great Aunt Valda Vaughan, when she was in her nineties). The series consists of five pieces, four about my grandparents (Heirloom 1: Margaret; Heirloom 2: Victor; Heirloom 3: Etta, and Heirloom 4: Charlie) and one about myself as their granddaughter (Heirloom 5: Red Shoes). Since all my grandparents had died by the time I began this work, The Heirloom Series became a project of family archeology and an opportunity to build emotional connections.


Heirloom 2: Victor	Heirloom 3: Etta	Heirloom 5: Red Shoes

Click on image for a larger view.

I loved researching daily life of the early 20th century -- for example, scanning Toronto newspapers of 1905 for some mention of my Vaughan grandparents' wedding and discovering the hottest controversies and causes célèbres of their world. Since one of my grandfathers worked for Canadian National Railways, the other the Anglican Church, I could trace their passage through institutional documents of the time. My maternal grandmother came to life as I delved into her professional training as an operating room nurse at the New York Hospital. Histories of nursing suggested what her working life might have been like, the uniform she'd have worn, the medical knowledge available to her.

I pieced together some sense of Etta from borrowed photographs, took hints from her handwriting, and incorporated suggestions from my dreams of her. Plus, since I knew she died of breast cancer in 1960, I delved into notions of the disease at that time, comments from women of her era who had lived with breast cancer, and medical images of the disease itself. Of course, I'll never know how close my approximation (Heirloom 3: Etta) comes to the real woman, but I do feel much more connected to her by my work.

I've written about these works in Family stories and family snaps: Word and image in the Heirloom Series an illustrated essay/exhibition catalogue.

The Heirloom Series is the springboard for my teaching as an Artist in Education for the Ontario Arts Council. Related to these works is the "Working From the Family" collage project that I implement with students in Ontario classrooms.

Heirloom 1: Margaret and Heirloom 2: Victor were exhibited at Visual Arts Ontario, Toronto, March 1-3, 1995.

Heirloom 3: Etta, Heirloom 4: Charlie, and Heirloom 5: Red Shoes were shown at Gallery 313, 80 Spadina Ave., as part of Birthmarks and Other Souvenirs, March 18 - April 1, 1995, with works by Danica Loncar and Pauline Varga.

Heirloom 1 and works 3-5 were exhibited at Northrop Frye Hall, Victoria University at the University of Toronto, March 26 - April 13, 2001.

Please contact me with any questions you might have about this series.

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All original artwork and texts: © Kathleen Vaughan, 2000-2008, except where otherwise noted. 'redhanded' text-based logo design: © Dale Barrett, 1997. 'redhanded' logo photo: © Paul Buer, 1996. • All Rights Reserved

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