My Grandma’s Dressing Table

When I was little, I would go and stay with my Grandma. She would give me and my sister her bedroom to sleep in as she only had a one bedroom flat and she would sleep on the sofa. her dressing table was pride of place in the room and in it’s kidney shape beauty was five drawers, a wrap around mirror and a stall. Inside the drawers were treasures – jewellery, love letters, gems (what I thought were gems when I was little), make-up and beautiful artefacts. I was fascinated with it. To the point that in my BA Fine Art degree piece, I featured the dressing table in a film I made. My Grandma always told me it was mine when she died. She died after going into a care home with dementia, long after we had cleared her flat. I wasn’t ready for the dressing table, so it went to my mums, until this year, when I finally had space for it. It’s now prime position in my spare bedroom and the drawers are slowly filling with my jewellery, make-up, trinkets and treasures.