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.

Since Michael was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2021, the artist has been navigating the conflicted emotions of being his carer—grief, guilt, frustration, love. Making art has become a way for her to cope with that experience, and increasingly, to connect with others who are also caring for loved ones.

The artist’s father Michael lives in Somerset and his favourite hobby is stacking piles of logs and kindling for his wood-fired heater. He still makes random piles of twigs in his garden but he can’t remember how to create the height or structure of the one pictured below. The deterioration of Michael’s cognitive abilities was clear in the difference between two wood piles he made in 2017 and in 2024 (seen below). The artist decided to create a sculptural installation in homage of her father using branches from his woodpile combined with a rope knotted from ties and socks that he doesn’t wear anymore.

Wigwam for a Goose’s Bridle: Day 1. “The last time dad stayed at my flat at the end of 2023, he needed the loo in the middle of the night. But he couldn’t find the door out of his bedroom. 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 ties and socks that he can’t wear anymore to form a rope that would lead him from the bedroom to the bathroom.”

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 repetitive questions. 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.”