Once every few months, and then years, a comment was scratched into a register detailing the presentation of my great-great-grandmother during one of her stays at a Victorian asylum. A few times she made reference to stars for her crown or if others had them. One of her sons wrote of her ‘religious mania’, and that phrase, stars for my crown can be found in a contemporary hymn celebrating those who win souls. Records state she was often to be found on her knees praying and she would talk of some unspecified sin of hers.

​

There was no diagnosis then of course, and perhaps seeking sense and understanding amongst those few recorded lines is a futile task, but it made me think about her crown of stars as a need for forgiveness and redemption. It made me consider my own failings, not least as a daughter; I have led an unconventional life, I am not materialistic, I'm not pretty and don't do much about it, I've never wanted children, my health isn’t great, my life is small and precarious, I’m no one a mother could boast about. I know that is not a sin in a strict sense, but it is something I feel I need to atone for.

 

​Redemption can be sought as my ancestor tried to do, through religion or ritual. But as an atheist it is hard not to see that as a shortcut, a false resolution, an alternative would be to accept one’s sin, and learn to carry it and perhaps that is the only true route to peace with our choices and circumstances, at least it is for me.

​

​A crown of stars is also associated with the Virgin Mary, a symbol of redemption, she herself removed of sin before she was born, the new Eve, an intercessor, as well as a symbol of the motherhood I have rejected. And so various aspects of Marian iconography including the annunciation and the Madonna and child have appeared in the tapestry as well as images exploring what may have led my great-great-grandmother into her predicament and me into mine.