Right behind the eyes

Alela Diane at South Bank 2007

My friend Alex Highton has a song which starts “You’ve got the trees, right behind your eyes”. (it’s called You’ve got the trees) I like this line very much, it has immediate visual elements working on more than one level, so it opens up a whole host of possibilities. In some ways it reminded me of  a poster Luke Insect did for a show we did with Alela Diane a while back (it’s there on the left). He hid the trees in her hair. It looked great. There are trees everywhere it seems but it’s more the eyes I wanted to write about today.

If you can get behind the eyes of people you’re supposed to be able to see all kinds of worlds (do they really mean it when they say they love me etc etc… and honest guvnor, I never done nothing…)

I’ve noticed this just the last couple of days in the way my mum looks when she isn’t aware that I am watching her/taking a photo. Her eyes look into the distance and she’s apparently deep in thought. She certainly looks wise in the way that older people do. Alex Ferguson looks wise when he dramatically interviews looking away from the camera. Ferguson has got a kind of gravitas (sorry if you’re not bothered about the footy – I’m sure it would feel the same if Scorcese, or Martina Navratilova, looked away from camera during an interview), and you know that he has a depth of knowledge about his subject that is up there with the very best.

My mum is about 7 months older than Ferguson, and has been suffering and deteriorating with Alzheimer’s Diseasefor that last maybe 9, definitely 6 or 7 years. We went for a coffee Saturday morning and I sneaked these pictures of her looking away and contemplating I don’t know what.

Saturday 7 Aug 2010

Saturday 7 Aug 2010

Saturday 7 Aug 2010

She looks very proud and dignified and I wonder what it is she is actually thinking. Whether they are lucid thoughts which she just struggles to communicate, or perhaps the thoughts themselves come in the hotch-potch way she tells them. Either way, I do like to think there’s a bunch of wisdom still going on behind those eyes. Trees, Grandchildren, Nature, Holidays, Sons, Nephews, Sisters, Parents, Friends… A whole life in fact.