Typography & design by
Richard Wolfströme

Exhibition and installation
by Standard 8

Website
Words William Shaw
Design Richard Wolfströme
Photography Kenny Laurenson

Publishing consultant Adrian Driscoll

An Unmadeup Production

...the sheer nothingy-ness of her dad

Starbucks @ Borders Books & Music, 6 Churchill Square

Mum has turned up with sugared almonds. "I found these. Maybe you should write now."

Mayamoon’s excuse has been she didn’t know her Uncle Mickey’s address. That’s why she didn’t thank him for the £50 he sent her for Christmas. But that’s months ago now. She takes the sugared-almond hint.

"A little thing like a card can make someone feel really good," says mum.

So now Maya and her mum sit drinking tea from the big Starbucks mugs, and while mum flicks through National Geographic, Maya writes the cards they bought
from Paperchase.

First she thanks Uncle Mickey, apologises for not doing so earlier, tells him how she’s left home now and has moved into the scary adult world. Mickey was always her favourite uncle.

Then she writes the second card to grandmother, asking her to forward the card to Mickey, adding a big biro heart. Mum has bought the almonds to slip into the envelope. Grandmother always loves them.

"Family is important," says Maya’s mum. She should know; she doesn’t have one. Pregnant at 19, dropping out, turning vegetarian, living in a bus, she fell out with her own parents. When her mother died they hadn’t spoken for 17 years. She doesn’t want it to be like that for Maya. And grandmother was a big part of Maya’s childhood, however much that still hurts.

Maya’s grandmother hadn’t even known she had a granddaughter until Maya was two, though they were just down the road. Maya’s dad never told his mother about Maya. (So often it is the sheer nothingy-ness of her dad that makes
Maya cry.)

Ecstatic, Maya’s grandmother took in her new granddaughter, raised her, feeding her meat, giving her all the things that Maya’s mum couldn’t, creating a wall between mother and daughter. Maya grew up resenting mum, wishing she’d been called Laura.

Now she’s 20 it’s different. She loves being called Mayamoon. It’s for her mother she’s writing the envelope to the grandmother her mother never speaks to, dropping in the almonds.

Maya’s mum takes the card and licks the glue.