That Orange Carpet (tw: mental health issues)

In the 1970s our home decor was all orange, brown and lime green. It felt like we had that same grotesque flowery orange carpet on our stairs for my entire childhood. I also feel like my clothes shared the same palette; our pets certainly did- not the lime green, but we had a friendly brown dog and a succession of spiteful ginger tomcats, one of whom famously camouflaged himself on an orange mandala cushion and got sat on.

I digress. I'm here to talk about the painting. And orange carpets, And about mental health, a bit.

I benefit from the ongoing tutelage of contemporary artist Martin Kinnear (@kinnearmartin). He teaches using studies of classical artists and applying those techniques to contemporary art. My own work has improved beyond measure due to his wisdom.

As someone who gets a bit bored painting anything without a face, one particular thing he said really stuck in my mind.

"Don't paint what it is of, paint what it is about."

That got me thinking. After a period of respectful procrastination I embarked on a short series of paintings about rooms I was familiar with as a child. This painting, the only one I like of the series, is of our 1970s hallway with its orange staircase and doorways to the lounge (right), bathroom (left) and kitchen (straight down the hall past the cat ambush zone). But it is actually about something else entirely.

It's about coming home. And mental health, a little bit.

Coming home was tricky. Home life entirely revolved around Mum's state of mind; we were utterly at the whim of her mental health. The hallway was the place where you had about 3 or 4 seconds to power up your senses and instincts to assess her mood and location and therefore, determine how the rest of the day was likely to pan out.

For example, if the vibe was really bad, you could sense it before you went in. But if the vibe was ambiguous, there were physical clues. If the lights were on, it was probably ok. If she was in the lounge it was usually ok. If she was in the kitchen it might be ok. In the kitchen with the lights off? Definitely not ok. If she had her coat on in any room, it was bad. If her hair was unkempt, it was worse. If she was upstairs with the curtains shut, you'd wish you'd never come home.

And even if she was calm and ok, or (hallelujah!) a visitor had arrived so she was acting nice, there was still the bloomin' cat to get past.

So this painting is about all that; uncertainty, unease, heightened senses, impending attack, the weary acceptance of soul crushing gloom, the joyous relief at anything approaching normal.

And that God-awful orange carpet.

Note: Mum had a raft of diagnosed/misdiagnosed and undiagnosed mental health illnesses and issues causing her to behave in aggressive, terrifying and coercively controlling ways throughout my life, particularly during my 1970s & 80s childhood when I was completely at her mercy. Mental health issues held enormous stigma then. Nowadays, we have the language that describes her behaviour and (with extreme caution) I would guess there was a personality disorder like narcissism somewhere in there along with the less toxic diagnoses she made public. Any child of this sort of parent will understand all I'm not saying in this paragraph!