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When Jenny Armstrong died in 1985, there was a short hiatus when the cottage was left empty, before it was eventually cleared and sold. Victoria Crowe had visited Jenny many times over the fifteen years from 1970 when the family moved to Kittleyknowe and apart from Jenny’s 18 months in hospital, her door which had always been open to visitors, was suddenly locked. The artist felt that the interior and all its resonances and memories of Jenny were lost until she was granted access for a short period of about a week before the cottage was sold. She began to photograph the interior, which was dimly lit, full of dusty sunlight or a cold snowlight and a glow from the fire. The black and white photos were disappointing, so Victoria returned to her drawn and observed studies of Jenny’s interior from over the years. From these she could see everything more clearly in her mind’s eye and she set about to recreate Jenny’s home. She made several large charcoal drawings (now in the collection of the National Galleries Scotland) and some oil paintings. Victoria felt a great urgency to catalogue everything, to keep all those memories, to look at all the aspects of the room together. The bed is indicative of Jenny’s last months at Monks cottage, when a hospital bed had been made available to her. There is an old table lamp tied on with string so that Jenny could have light handy; above the bed is the framed photo of her as a young woman, the Fraser boy’s photograph is on the dresser, next to an image of her three sheepdogs when she worked the hills – Laddie, Lassie and Fly. The tin of family circle biscuits would have been from her neighbour Tom Wickham, who always gave these as Christmas presents. Towards the back of the room, a chest of drawers has a green plastic bag of messages (term for shopping).
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