This week's prompt is 'Artistic', and to the best of my knowledge there have been no artists in my ancestry. As a child, however, I learned that my mother had been quite the musician in her youth and had played the guitar with a Melbourne band.
I can remember being fascinated by my mother's guitar - cream coloured with beautiful paintwork - which she usually kept wrapped in a blanket on top of a wardrobe in my parents' bedroom. Occasionally she would take it down and let me admire it, but I have no memory of ever seeing her play it until I started learning to play myself in my last year of primary school.
I would later discover that mum had auditioned and been shortlisted to play in the backing band for pop due Bill and Boyd after they first came to Australia from New Zealand. This opportunity was not to be, however, and soon after mum began working as a governess in rural New South Wales, where she met my father.
After marriage and children mum rarely played her guitar again, and it stayed tucked away in storage. After she passed away in 2015 I rediscovered her guitar, and it came with me to my new home.
