I started this painting as I often do, these days; with a layer of free writing with the brush. It’s a good way to fill the canvas with what I intend to convey. Getting all the literal meaning and the superficial thoughts out of my head. Clearing away the baggage to make way for something deeper and more symbolic. My intention from the beginning was to do a still life painting of this little suitcase but I didn’t yet know what the composition would be.

When I moved out of home, my parents cleared out their shed and gave me all the years of school stuff and hobbies and toys that they’d been hanging onto. This little Globite school case from when I was in kindergarten is one of the few things that survived multiple culling efforts over several house moves.

I was cleaning out my teenage son’s bedroom, sorting out the too-small clothes and toys for the op shop, when I found this bag again. It had walkie talkies and Nerf bullets in it. It survived another round of things being chucked out and given away, and I took it to my art studio.

Last year, as an extension to the couples therapy sessions, I had a number of individual sessions with a psychologist. She blew the dust off this school case and dared me to look inside. We all bring something of our childhood into adulthood—the way we see life; the ways we react to it. There’s some nature and some nurture, and until things went wrong enough in my adult life, I didn’t think this bag had anything in it worth examining. There are no scary stories or skeletons in this one; just a child’s experiences of emotions that informed patterns in my own behaviour as I made my way through life.

It’s confronting to open this baggage under the spotlight. You learn how much of your own power you gave away and for how long. You realise how many choices you’ve made in life were driven by childhood fears and shame. You wonder about the patterns your own parenting has created for your kids. How will their fears show up in their adult life? How heavy will their baggage be? I’ve done my best with what I knew, as did my own parents. All I can do now is remind my kids to have the courage to look inside their own bags and jettison what’s not useful.

This artwork was painted in acrylic and has been overlaid with oils and cold wax medium. I wanted to preserve the layers with the transparency of the wax medium. We are all composed of many layers with our baggage showing through each and every one.