It was during a webinar that I heard two respected curators convey the sentiment that artists should stop waiting for a gallery space and make their own... A few months later in autumn 2023, I heard about an empty shop unit in the nearest town and my idea to activate it came about.
In May 2024, I staged a shop front gallery (simply; visible from the outside) over the course of a month. Open to the public for a total of six hours only; in which I invited each visitor to view work I had made about my family tree and partake in a drawing project where I was drawing my own ‘handmade family tree’; a project called ‘Family Trees and Six Degrees’.
The artist discusses her works during 'Family Trees and Six Degrees' with visitors to the space. Works L - R : William, Inishmacsaint, Demise: St Matthias', Siblings
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William was the first person I met in my family tree. He felt like a kindred spirit, which may seem bizarre given that he died in 1917 whilst at sea, but that’s exactly why – he was lost at sea (literally). I was lost at sea, figuratively; growing up in an extended family I felt I didn’t fit in to. Where did my creative streak come from? Who else in the family line was like me, I wondered – bar one cousin who I’ve always known as a musician.
Turns out, I was looking down the wrong branch – my maternal side is filled with artists, writers and musicians. My grandfather whom I'd never met, like me, spent Christmases decorating shop windows as I had done when I was a teenager - funny how history has a way of repeating itself, and sometimes we’re not even aware.
William, like many of my ancestors had a life filled with tragedy. He lost his parents and wife prior to his own demise, building beautiful memorials to each where they were laid to rest. Ironically, William never got a tombstone himself, just a mention on three scattered cenotaphs due to his service during the war. I felt that by depicting him and shedding light on some of his story, this was my little epitaph to him. A painted place to rest and a nod to his love of the sea. 
William, 2023, mixed media on canvas, 30cms x 25cms framed
In fact, the whole idea behind me depicting my ancestors' stories and showing them in a space, was to elevate them - ordinary people, and honour their contribution to this world but also to my being here. We owe a lot to those who went before us and how many of those stories go unheard?
I had always known William wasn’t actually a blood relative of mine. He was the ‘uncle’ of my granny – who was adopted as a young child by William’s brother Thomas and his wife Josephine. My granny never knew William, as he had died long before she was born. She had never known or ever wanted to, her biological family. It was respecting her wishes that halted my search of the family tree – my interest in it had started when I was around 14 - collecting snippets of information from grandparents written down on envelopes and spare lined paper from old school books, which I still have today.
But I never wanted to overstep, out of love for her.
It was only when I lost my mum in October 2022, and with her a piece of myself, that I began really contemplating who I was. Coincidentally, I met a lady around that time who had previously worked in the Public Records Office and she was the key to unlocking the many stories and names I had never been able to before. From there, it was all about unearthing the stories of generations before...
The only thing was, to make art about this was more problematic than I imagined. There were self imposed barriers that I wasn't aware of; the first coming from having spent the majority of my early childhood growing up in West Belfast - seeing and absorbing so much about physical and conversational barriers subconsciously, and secondly I had internal barriers around disrespecting my granny's wishes.
The two pieces below, were born out of an exercise were I drew things out (literally and metaphorically) around all the issues I had facing my family tree and in general. They are 'excerpts' from a 10 metre long roll of paper that I unravelled and began mark making on during a week long residency at the Tyrone Guthrie centre in Februray 2024.
They built walls / Tiptoe My Darling
Framed works on paper, 2024, 61cms x 91cms each
After the cathartic act of shedding these barriers, the stories can more freely.
Bernard was a hotel waiter in Ballyshannon, Donegal and Jane was a sixteen year old from Derry. I don’t know how they met but I do know they fell in love. And because of Jane’s age, they eloped to a little island in Lough Erne called Inishmacsaint where there was a monastery. Along with them, was Jane’s father who gave his permission for them to marry as Jane was underage. They were my great great grandparents. They brought our family line to Belfast, where I have always known it to be.
Inishmacsaint, 2024, mixed media on cradled wooden board, 30cms x 30cms
As I explored their stories, I began writing about them. I imagined that if future generations were to come looking for me, what would they find?
I wrote little lyrics to accompany each work, to act almost as an archive for when 2024 is re-discovered and I'm someone's ancestor. I felt it was important to display these alongside each work. 
Detail : Lyrics for 'Demise: St Matthias' '
There was one work on display that wasn't finished before I brought it along to show. And since it has been shown, it's become completely undone on one side.
This work; Siblings, is/was about my grandmother Mary and her brother Peter Keenan.
My grandmother passed away in 2021 and Peter in 1947. He had been the victim of a well documented hit and run incident on Belfast's Springfield Road. He was 12 when he was mown down and left lying on the road, with his pet dog lying beside him. It was a tragedy that scarred my grandmother's life amongst many others. This diptych speaks of their shared start in life but hugely different life spans. She went on to work in Conway Mill as a young girl, have a big family and be many things to many people, whereas he never got that opportunity. 
Siblings, 2024, mixed media on two canvases, Diptych of 80cms x 40cms
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Whilst researching my heritage, unearthing familiar family names and town names over and over but which ultimately led to dead ends was frustrating to say the least, but I began to think that maybe there was a reason?
There’s a joke that goes there are 40 million Irish people in America but only 8 million on the island of Ireland, and intrinsically when you meet someone who has Irish heritage they will always ask if you know, ‘such an such from such a place’… Why? Because at our core, humans crave connection. We want to be connected, we want to feel connected to others. It's just how we're made.
So, I began thinking, what if we all are? Connected. In 1929, Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy wrote a short story and began defining what we now know and refer to as the social theory ‘six degress of separation’, whereby it is believed that we are six social connections or less away from knowing one another.
I wanted to find a way to document all of these connections, because they all seemed so familiar – and so I began to think about how to map them in a family tree style, way. It was at Tyrone Guthrie in February that I trialed this.
I would invite every person I interacted with to be recorded against a piece of paper. I would trace half of their outline. Why only half? When drawn this way, the line become almost like a branch to me. This fed into the Tree idea but also, I recognised that I did not fully know these people in most cases and the half symbolised this.
Adding another branch to the made 'six degrees' family tree
Each person was asked for their family name, which was recorded at the top of their line drawing, to honour their bloodline just how I was honouring mine with the different artworks I had made and was showing. Families or pairs of people that came together and already had connections; blood or otherwise, were drawn within proximity of one another or overlapping to show that tie.
At the foot of each line, a place that the individual felt most at home was recorded; to signify their rooting system. This sense of home varied from individuals names, to ‘nowhere/undecided’, to activities that the individual enjoyed. The project evolved beyond the boundaries I had initially placed on it; a bit like a family, who all grow in different directions but are grouped under one umbrella title, like a name. The drawing was a self made family, of many different branches. 
The 'made' family tree / adding to the drawing 
To begin the self made family tree, I asked blood relatives of my own family to be drawn so that the connection to me was resolute. There were 6 lines connected to me within this 'self made tree' of 47 lines in total. The youngest participant was 9 months old and the eldest, 78 years young.
Each person that was drawn over the course of the two 3 hour sessions, had a story about a place or a listed family names that they recognised on the drawn family tree, which only reinforced the 'six degrees of separation' theory.
The project was only possible because of the people who showed up during those few hours, and the conversations that followed.
It's a project that I hope to revisit because of those conversations.
If you are interested in tracing your family tree, here are some links to resources on the PRONI (Public Records Office of Northern Ireland) website that I made available during the two days that this project was open to the public:
- https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/publications/how-trace-your-family-tree
- https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/publications/tracing-your-family-tree-useful-sources
- https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/publications/chart-family-tree