I have a vivid memory of being five or six years old and visiting the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire. In a brightly lit gallery (I’m almost certain I know exactly which one), surrounded by other works, was something that isn’t uncommon for art museums—a queen-sized bed. But this bed was different than the traditional example of 18th-19th century decorative arts; rather, it was a piece of contemporary art.
The bed was four-poster, and, if I remember correctly, made of dark wood, with a creamy white satin bedspread. But it was unlike any bed I had ever seen—the coverlet had been painstakingly beaded with tiny glass orbs of many colors that formed a diamond latticework pattern across the top. Those were interspersed with trinkets and charms—I distinctly remember a miniature Pepsi soda cup that had been sewn to the cloth.
But what I remember more distinctly than the appearance is the story the docent told us about the work. I remember her telling my rapt kindergarten class that the artist’s beloved nanny had passed away, and in mourning, he used materials from her jewelry box to decorate her bed as a sort of shrine to her. As a kindergartener, death was something I couldn’t quite grasp and I remember the pit it created in my stomach to hear the story. It was so macabre, so haunting—it has stuck with me since then.
In the years since I last saw this artwork, I have searched everything I can think of to try to find it. I’ve tried every possible combination of words and phrases on Google: “contemporary art decorated bed,” “nanny died boy decorated bed,” “Currier Museum decorated bed,” “beaded bedspread” and so on. I’ve tried searching as though the whole bed was the work and as though just the quilt was the work. I’ve tried Google Arts and Culture; I’ve searched the Currier’s collections database repeatedly and even tried to access their exhibition archives (the website no longer works). I’ve looked through the auction catalogs of Christie’s and Sotheby’s and have scoured Artnet. Short of reaching out to the museum with a slightly odd request (“hey, can I look through your exhibition records to try to find this one very specific art piece I remember from when I was five years old?”) I’ve tried everything I can think of to find this work.
And yet I can’t seem to find it. It’s almost as though the work never existed; as if I fabricated the entire thing. I’ve come across the work of Thom Atkins, who makes beautiful, beaded quilts, and whose work also stems from tragedy—he started making quilts after being in a car accident and losing mobility and thus the ability to sculpt. From what I can see through Google Images, his work is ornate, much like the work I remember was, but the link to his portfolio website doesn’t work and I can’t find a record of any exhibitions of his work.
I’ve also come across work from Tracey Emin, starting with her infamous “My Bed” piece. Going further down that rabbit hole, I found her piece “To Meet My Past,” which feels so close to what I remember. It, too, is a four-poster bed that has been decorated with tchotchkes. I almost thought this could be the one I remembered, but while it was created in 2002, meaning that it feasibly could have been exhibited between 2005-2007, when I would have visited the museum, but exhibition records say otherwise. It has only ever been exhibited in London and New York City, two places I didn’t visit until much later in my life. And additionally, Emin’s work features words, phrases, and concepts that, while important, are a bit beyond the level of appropriateness for a kindergarten class—I don’t think the docent would have shown it to a group of young children.
Reading about one of the exhibitions of Emin’s work led me to Grayson Perry, another quilt artists who tends to center political themes in his work. But this, too, is a dead end—I can find no record of any quilt matching the description I remember in his portfolio.
And so I am at a loss. I have exhausted all of my avenues. It is so abnormal not to be able to find something online in an age when most of the information I could possibly want is constantly at my fingertips. And yet here I am, feeling unfulfilled as I search for something I am not even sure exists. In the absence of any concrete evidence of if this artwork exists, or even ever existed, I am left with so many questions. What is this work? Who made it? Am I remembering correctly that it was at the Currier, or was it at another museum? Was the quilt the work, or was the whole bed? Was the story the docent told true, or was it simply an embellishment, a tactic to engage kindergarteners? Where is the bed now? Who is the boy? Who is the nanny? Wherever it is, is it still connected to its story? Will I ever find it?
You may be wondering, amidst the chaos of my internet sleuthing, why I am even bothering with this search. And to be honest, I’m not quite sure. It may be a test of my own memory, to see if my brain somehow fabricated this story. It may be because I still feel the macabre pull of the artist’s tragic loss. Maybe it is because my experience with this piece feels like my first truly connective experience with a piece of art. Maybe it is because I want to see if I still see if the same way, as a twenty-four-year-old, that I did as a five- or six-year-old. Maybe it is simply a meaningless quest in an effort to distract myself from the many unpleasant realities of the world. Maybe it is a combination of all. I’m not entirely sure. But something about this work continues to tug at me and, perhaps naively, I hope I can find it.
