FRANKIE FATHERS ARTIST

WIGWAM FOR A GOOSE’S BRIDLE

The Installation Wigwam for a Goose’s Bridle is an interactive work exploring the artist’s ageing fathers’ worsening dementia and obsession with stacking twigs. Her father Michael, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2021, is now very confused and can’t remember where he sleeps and sometimes even who the artist or her brother are. The interactive installation changes daily, monthly and yearly mirroring Michael’s condition and is accompanied by the artist’s writing.

The artist’s father Michael lives in Somerset and his favourite hobby is stacking piles of logs and kindling for his wood-burning heater. He still piles branches randomly in his garden and now even inside and sometimes in his shoes, but he can’t remember how to create the height or structure of the one pictured below. The artist decided to create a sculptural installation in homage using branches from his woodpile combined with a rope knotted from ties that he doesn’t wear anymore and socks that he can’t wear due to swollen feet.

Wigwam for a Goose’s Bridle: Day 1: “The last time dad stayed at my apartment at the end of 2023, he needed the bathroom in the middle of the night but couldn’t find the door in his room. He felt trapped and desperate to pee so he pounded on the walls until I woke up. I wanted to create my own Ariadne’s thread for dad by knotting together his unused ties and socks to form a rope that would lead him to the loo and bed.”

Wigwam for a Goose’s Bridle: Day 2. “Sometimes I feel like the rope I’ve knotted from dad’s ties and socks is for me. Like in a folktale, I will knot the ties together and lower myself out of the window using my makeshift rope to escape my responsibilities for him.”

Wigwam for a Goose’s Bridle: Day 3: “My dad is from New Zealand. When I was small, like many kids I used to ask him endless questions all the time. He would get frustrated or bored and often reply with the same answer “Wigwam for a goose’s bridle”. I always asked him what it meant, but he always refused to tell me. I’d spend hours trying to figure it out with my brother. Was there a goose somewhere in New Zealand wearing a bridle and how did it link to us?
Maybe now that it’s dad repeatedly asking me the same questions over and over again and I lose patience with him, maybe I can also reply “Wigwam for a goose’s bridle”. Or maybe that’s just cruel.”