On Memory: Malleable Memory and Visual Cues

What if some memories are rooted in a a place?

Recently, we took my nephews to the California Academy of Sciences. I’ve been there so many times through out my life. Because of this, I realized the words “California Academy of Sciences” don’t bring a stream of events or certain story to mind.  This is funny to me because in the same Golden Gate Park that houses the museum are the DeYoung Museum and Japanese Tea Garden- both of which I've only visited once and have very specific memories of.

When I think of the California Academy of Science, I think of the albino alligator that’s lived there since I was a child. That's exclusively what always comes to mind. There's a whirl of field trips and family trips swirling around him like a whirpool around a drain. Going to visit him the other day, he looks the same! 

It made me think how memories are malleable in different way. When you recall a memory, it is taken from it’s “memory box” and handled. Present-day thoughts effect it and it returns to the box, to be revisited again, slightly different.

My mind has handled the California Academy of Sciences quite a bit. All is blurry and hard to put into focus. All except Claude in his eternal swamp. Like other precious memories, I’m sure if I returned to the museum and didn't find Claude in his familiar spot or didn't find him at all, the museum would disappoint me. I’m sure a lot has changed about the museum since my first or last visit, but I haven’t noticed because I have fixated on him.

I wonder if my nephews will think of certain elements of the museum the same way if they were to visit a third time. I wonder if my father, who’s taken me to the museum many times, thinks of Claude the same way I do.

I learned a lot about about my own memory ron that San Francisco trip.

Before we visited the museum, we visited my grandmother’s grave. I’ve been painting my memory of the day she died but my painting stalled when I had health issues. Prior to the hiatus, the painting did prod emotional scars so I was afraid I’d be emotional at the grave.

Painting the memory was a constant feeling of vulnerability and pain but I didn’t feel as strong a flood of emotion driving through the cemetery as I did when we got to the recognizable little foot of the hill, beside the little funerary road and saw the familiar tombstone. That’s when I realized just how strong visual cues are for me. The sights really got me. Maybe that’s why I get so emotional painting rather than writing about memories.

What sensory cues do you respond most to?

Finished!* Spring 2002: First Time I Saw Justin

I am happy to share this finished piece with you beautiful souls!

"Spring 2002: First Time I Saw Justin"⠀
2017. Acrylic, Crayon, Colored Pencil on Mixed Media Paper. 18"x24".⠀

In this piece I explore how my mind organizes a very short but very special memory. Through creating this, I’ve learned about how I recall and prioritize stimuli from very short bursts of time.

The way I deal with remembering color is fascinating to me. It's also funny realizing I can remember a fact about a moment but not be able to establish a stable visual for it in my head. In this memory, I know my high school Newspaper teacher was present at this moment but I don’t know what he was doing or wearing (hence the word "OLSON"). The word, rather than a visual is a trigger for a fact.

If you want to know more about this piece, you can check my recent blog entry on the process and thought behind it.

Thanks for checking it out!

Spring 2002: First Time I Saw Justin

DETAIL: Spring 2002: First Time I Saw Justin (IN PROGRESS)

I travel space and time. 

I think we all do. As you sit and read, time passes through you- an imperceptible but relentlessly strong current. It won't stop for you just because you sit there. You're traveling time.

We travel space. Yes, we are literally hurtling through space on this little blue marble of a planet. We inhabit actual physical space, too. We move through it as we get up and walk. We can stand in the same physical space we stood in years ago and not be within the same spot in time the way we are within the same spot in physical space.

I believe it's a miracle that I inhabit the same speck of time and space as the man I love. We have been in love since 2003... married since 2015. This work in progress is a study of the exact time and physical space we inhabited when I first saw him.

Through this piece, I'm exploring how my mind makes and keeps memories. I'm recording the few but often revisited visuals my mind recalls from that very short moment.  I'm learning about how my mind organizes color, assigns value to simultaneous stimuli and amplifies recurring narratives into memories and my perception of history.

I'm fascinated with using commonplace traditional media such as paper, acrylic paint, colored pencil and glitter paint in my work. I also am interested in finger-painting and in using pure colors. There's something freeing about taking crayons straight from the crayola box and coloring the way I child would by focusing on association and content rather than exact color replication. Working in this way frees me from feeling I must meet public high brow medium standards. With these barriers gone, I can more freely explore my memories and mental color organization.

August 2014 : When Grandma Died

This work in progress is about the moment I heard my paternal grandmother died.

Forcefully replaying this memory is ...weird. This piece has a strong hand in shaping my future perception of the memory it is based on. While the piece is in progress, I don't discuss the memory with people who were there. I don't want witness accounts blurring with mine...

But blurring happens. Fictional and romantic notions creep in, shaping both my painting and my memory. I realize I not only want my piece to appear visually pleasing to the viewer, but to my future self. I actually accept this act of poetic license the way a writer is emboldened by journaling. As long as the inconsistencies in my work were written by my mind, I'm okay with inconsistencies because memories are never consistent. Where once I feared making this picture would sully my sacred thoughts, I now find it empowers me.

Using references for this piece in progress.

As one who struggles with depression, I treasure this feeling of empowerment over my own perception. I accept the fears and the pain I cannot master. I invite them to speak or perform until I understand and respect them.

There are wrenching memories outside of this one I know I'll try to paint, someday. When I do, I will be the ringmaster of my own mind. I can't control the world around me but I can control the way my mind perceives what happens to me.

August 2014 : When Grandma Died ... IN PROGRESS

It is emotionally intense creating pieces like these. I've required breaks from creating this one because I miss my grandmother or I feel the weight of death passing from one generation to the next. It's difficult to work on other pieces directly after touching this but breaks are necessary not just to let me breathe, but to allow the piece to breathe. My present moments need to shape the pure pictures of my past. To me, replaying certain memories doesn't diminish their quality but adds to their value.

These pieces aren't themselves my past, but ever-present places in my mind. I can never stop revisiting the day my grandmother died. Even if I never started this painting, the memory will live, breathe and evolve with me until I also pass on.

Detail: August 2014 : When Grandma Died ... IN PROGRESS