The stories that the fragments of old memories can tell

Splinters of the past

How did it happen that a green milkglass sugar bowl became an angel-wing pendant? Martie Swanepoel writes about the stories that the fragments of old memories can tell.

projects and styling CARIN SMITH photos ED O'RILEY

Icame across some words by George Bernard Shaw that justify my over-the-top chandelier. ʻIf you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you might as well let it dance. ʼ An exuberant chandelier with blue, red and green pieces of glass, brimming with old brooches and necklaces. It shines in magical prisms when the morning sun catches it and it brings me neverending pleasure. For others, old costume jewellery; for me, a sparkling reminder of an exceptional womanʼs life. It helps to fill the emptiness left by the daily phone call to my mother that I can no longer make. My mother had 50 brooches! Multicoloured bright stones and pretty marcasite. They had graced the lapels of her wool, cashmere and camel-hair jackets and coats since the 1940s. Brooches in the shape of floral arrangements, orchids, birds, swans, cats and dogs. Some with her initial, L. There is one that says, ʻMotherʼ , and one of doves in olive wood that a friend brought her from Israel. Along with the brooches, my inheritance was strings of necklaces set with glittering stones, from the days when my mother regularly went to shows at the State Theatre and the opera.

After her death, I gave each granddaughter and daughter-inlaw a small memory tin containing a pendant, earrings, a lapel pin and a string of beads that they could put away somewhere in a safe place, to take out when they miss Ouma.

But for the brooches, I had other plans. I didnʼt want simply to store my momʼs precious collection somewhere in drawer. I wanted to make her heritage a part of my everyday life.

On the plains of the Masai Mara in Kenya, of all places, my travelling companion Albe Sauer gave me an idea. She had had two beautiful chandeliers made from her motherʼs costume

PAPER PLATES

For instructions see page 79.

Our memories are the glue that binds our life together. Everything that you are is thanks to your memories.

jewellery. (My mom actually had a chandelier in her lounge that was not to the taste of any of her other heirs.)

After a few hours of, even if I say so myself, shining work, the chandelier is now as elegant and stylish as my mother was. The necklaces worked especially well. Nothing about my chandelier is symmetrical. Each corner provides a new surprise. (To make a similar one, you need a bit of crafting skill. I used jewellerʼs wire to attach some of the brooches to the chandelier. You need to work neatly and hide away the joins in the wire. You must take into account that itʼs going to be a focal point with its own spotlight and it must be a display piece that can become a family heirloom.)

To create balance in the room, I framed one of my motherʼs embroidered cloths and pinned some of the brooches onto the embroidered flowers. Itʼs pretty eye-catching. (I found the idea on Pinterest.)

Then I saw on Instagram how people use old brooches to make heritage Christmas decorations. For me, a regular hat-wearer, it went without saying that some of my momʼs brooches would be pinned onto my various hats and jackets. A few together, to make a proper statement. One Instagrammer took a black evening jacket and decorated one whole front panel with her vintage brooches. The secret is to go overboard again, to create a distinctive focal point. Some of the loveliest ideas that I saw on Instagram were fabulous bridal tiaras and bouquets made from family costume jewellery.

Ideas stylist and maker Carin Smith told me the story of her granʼs green milkglass sugar bowl that she broke. This heirloom piece was a family dispute in miniature, and then years later it shattered into pieces! One of the pieces had ripples on it and, to Carin, it looked like an angel wing. She had it set into a pendant for her mother (see page 78). And she plans to have a piece set for each family member who was fond of her gran.

A collection of Carinʼs ideas lands in my inbox, and I immediately know that I have found a soul sister!

She is a fan of kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing ceramics so that the seam is visible, and she had stacked a few repaired porcelain cups and saucers neatly on an old cake stand as a statement piece.

She has all the elements of a possible love story displayed in a box against a wall (page 81): A faded photo of a loving couple, one of a pretty woman, one of a dress. But then there is also an old-fashioned egg beater, secateurs, red needlework scissors, a teapot, roll of string, pin box and measuring tape. You can just see the story playing out when you look at it.

Using the kintsugi method, she made a necklace from antique blue porcelain fragments (page 78) and attached it, with other broken pieces, to an old photo frame.

An embroidery hoop and pieces of porcelain have been used to frame a womanʼs face (page 77) and a collection of old plates have been grouped together as a display background for a old family photo (page 73).

Louisa May Alcott, writer of the unforgettable Little Women, said you must preserve your memories, because if you forget them, you can never retell the old stories.

Carin and her mother pick up shards of old glass, porcelain and ceramics wherever they go walking. There are lovely gardens in Bishopscourt, at a place where there used to be houses for poor families. If you look carefully, you can find pieces of china and glass where people once used to live. Fragments of their lives.

For Carin, each piece has a story. She tries to imagine what life was like for the person who owned the original plate or cup. What did their house look like? Were they happy? Perhaps itʼs all thatʼs left of a plate with a precious history. Inherited from a granny? Was the plate one of the familyʼs loveliest possessions?

I also have a collection of strange treasures that I have accumulated over the years. I try to pick up a stone or memento at each place I visit. This is more meaningful to me than a souvenir from a tourist shop. In my jewellery box I have a rusty screw that I found at the Victoria Falls bridge when I bungee jumped there. I picked up a piece of glass in Vladivostok in Russia that had been tumbled smooth by the Sea of Japan. A recent find at the ancient Kongo Mosque, built from coral at Diani, Kenya, was a tile fragment that will always remind me of the pristine white beach and the huge baobabs that surround the Arabic buildings from the 15th century. In Kenya I made friends with Albe, who picked up flamingo bones and feathers with me at Lake Nakuru. (Our other tour companions didnʼt understand … But there is now a snow-white long flamingo thigh bone under a glass dome on my coffee table. Alongside it is a dome protecting the delicate nests of white eyes and flycatchers.)

Ouma Desirée Joubert started collecting bits and pieces of antique porcelain as child, near the family holiday house at Munster in then-Natal. The fragments came from the São João, which was wrecked in 1552 near Port Edward, and we are still picking up pieces there during our beach holidays. Ouma, who also wrote a book about the town, Munster and its Pioneers, had a pendant made for each one of her granddaughters and daughters-in-law, from the fragments of 400-year-old Chinese porcelain. They are items of jewellery with a rich history and a healthy dose of sentiment.

The American memory expert Kevin Horsley says our memories are the glue that binds our life together. Everything that you are is thanks to your memories. Your memory is like a databank. Itʼs good for you to surround yourself with sentimental items that hold happy memories.

This is where the red light will start flashing for minimalists, but the secret is to preserve memories selectively, say researchers from the University of Limerick in Ireland.

My friend Willie Strauss gave me a good idea that fits with this concept. You donʼt need to keep every old cake tin that your mother collected in her lifetime, but you can take one pretty lid and convert it into a kitchen clock. One pretty plate can become a photo frame.