FROM ROOT TO LEAF
Roots is a well known Canadian clothing brand, so much so that if you’re caught wearing a Roots sweater in London in the UK, you may well be stopped in the street by a Canadian visitor or expat asking where you’re from in Canada. My husband, who was born in Ontario, was given a leather Roots wallet when he was a teenager and it lived in his back pocket for over 35 years. Credit and business cards came and went as life moved on and the wallet’s corners withered, it’s skin thinned and its patina polished to a fine shine by the time it finally succumbed to a younger, fitter interloper.
Rather than discard this precious object, I used it instead to make a keepsake book for his birthday last year and filled it with images and objects that made me think about our life together, our children, their future and their shared past. It includes a daisy picked by my daughter when she was little, an image of my husband’s grandparents, dried leaves of the ancient Gingko, a print of an ultrasound scan and a microscopic cross section of root. I also made a small drypoint etching and other artworks inspired by special paces we’ve walked together, making use of leaves or bark I’ve collected along the way.
You could say I’m getting sentimental in middle age, but the truth is I’ve always been sentimental. It’s just that now I’m less embarrassed to admit it! And, though this project is obviously hugely personal and meaningful to us as a family, I also like the fact that the abstract nature of it lends itself to the joy of all family ‘trees’. Families are after all, bonded by love, not by blood.
