My Memory's Not What it Used to Be...

But, I think, in some instances, it has actually gotten better.
For those of you who know me and the bodies of work I have been kicking around for the last couple of years, you know that memory has played an important role in my subject matter. Whether it is sketching out an idea for an installation or fleshing out the details of a dream-inspired short story, I rely on my fractured memory to piece together the details. In the short story I am presently working on, I deal with this issue directly. In an effort to honor my grandfather, I am trying to tell the story of my relationship with him, through a series of conversations which prove what I "know" about him to be false. This story is based on actual conversations and, since beginning this project, I have all but lost faith in my ability to recall accurate information.

However, there is still something beautiful to be found in this inability to conjure. The invented events do not change the amount of love that I felt for my grandfather. They are simply born of assumptions I made about him based on clues that I remember quite vividly (for example: I thought he worked for YELLOW trucking company because of a notepad he always had next to the phone in the kitchen). My ability to "make something up" has leaked out into my day-to-day activities and perverted my ability to recall facts... but has not affected my enjoyment of these snack-sized memories. I loved my grandfather, I loved his notepads, and I loved the fact that I believed Mentos didn't exist outside of my grandparents house.

To counterpoint, I actually HAD a memory today. As in, I recalled something that I hadn't thought about or known in a very long time. My friends and loved ones know it is very common for me to forget something, but this moment of remembering (without someone saying, "remember when...?" and describing a scene until I finally recalled it), is rare and special.

I was working on a drawing for Fleisher's Dear Fleisher invitational biennial benefit exhibition (not the piece featured above, I won't be able to show this new piece until the sale and exhibition at the end of September), and the particular blue I was using to fill in an area of the drawing looked, for a moment, EXACTLY like the sky at my cousin Courtney's house when we were kids. Then I remembered how special the sunsets were there. She lived in Bethlehem, and I lived in Stroudsburg. In my hometown, uninterrupted skies were impossible to see through miles and miles of dense forest and rolling hills. Bethlehem, however, was fairly flat (where Courtney's house was) and, on clear evenings, you could ALWAYS see the sunset from her swingset. We would make sure that we were sitting on top of the monkeybars at the right time to see the pinks and oranges in the sky, and we would talk and laugh and hang upside-down.

She also had romper-stompers (hand-me-downs from Grant), a monkey swing, and Grape Escape. My only punishment for this bounty of worldly delights would be the occasional dinner with beets as a side dish. I still think they taste like dirt.