When my mother's memory was
still strong I had gotten
her a gift of a ceramic jar
with the label
memories. Within it
were strips of paper on
which I had written memories
of our times together.
Years later when she was
losing memory I noticed the
jar during a visit. I
took it down from its shelf
and together we went through
each memory. She read each
memory to me and we
remembered them
together. Some she
could recall, others were no
longer in her memory.
After we concluded she
thanked me for helping her
remember. Soon after
my sister was visiting and
heard a noise in the
kitchen. She looked in
and there was my mother
laughing at a memory in the
memory jar.
This painting includes some
of my favorite memories,
many from our trips
together. On a trip to
Europe I had driven a small
car from Provence to Spain
circling around many traffic
circles endlessly trying to
figure out where we were
going. My mother gave
me a small wooden race car
to commemorate our
trip. You can see it
in the upper right going in
circles. We often
laughed about a trip on
which I had boarded a train
and reached down for my mom
just as the train moved
forward. Soon she was
getting smaller as the train
moved forward with me on it,
both of us in shock.
Finally I threw my bag down
and jumped. Books were
a constant in our house and
many of my memories revolve
around our library
visits. I also wrote
of my mother peeling fruit
for me, making me feel loved
and nurtured. The
squares to the upper left
represent the picture
postcards of artwork that my
mother used to post in her
kitchen gallery.
These
paintings grew out of a
quote from Toni
Morrison. She writes:
You know they straightened
out the Mississippi River in
places, to make room for
houses and livable acreage.
Occasionally the river
floods these places.
"Floods" is the word they
use, but in fact it is not
flooding; it is remembering.
Remembering where it used to
be. All water has a
perfect memory and is
forever trying to get back
to where it was.
So how does this relate to
loss of memory? One of the
things I observed in my
parents as they lost memory
was the way they clung to
their prior identity. As I
explored the question of
what happens to identity as
we lose memory, I concluded
that identity is very
persistent. Even if they no
longer possessed the
capability to do the tasks
of their prior identity, it
remained an important part
of how they saw themselves.
My father was deeply
involved in technology in
his day, a man before his
time in many respects. Then
time passed him by. His
identity as a tech-savvy
person was deeply embedded
and in his later years he
had a propensity to purchase
technology even if he could
no longer comprehend it. He
returned to the path he once
carved.
Similarly my mother who had
been a first grade teacher
created collages every day,
but she called it "cutting
and pasting." She had a wall
on which she had pictures of
things that interested her
that she called her
"bulletin board". She
returned to deeply ingrained
aspects of her life as a
teacher. Their world
narrowed as they aged, just
as the river's path was
straightened, yet they
flooded its banks, seeking
the life they once lived,
the person they once were,
their emotional memory
leading the way.
You will see two faces
embedded in the coastline
lower painting. See if you
can find them. The painting
above also has a face which
I imagined as land within
the water.
This
was my first memory jar
painting based on the story
told in The Open Jar.
When
my mother's memory was still
strong I had gotten her a gift
of a ceramic jar with the
label memories. Within
it were strips of paper on
which I had written memories
of our times together.
Years later when she was
losing memory I noticed the
jar during a visit. I
took it down from its shelf
and together we went through
each memory. She read each
memory to me and we remembered
them together. Some she
could recall, others were no
longer in her memory.
After we concluded she thanked
me for helping her
remember. Soon after my
sister was visiting and heard
a noise in the kitchen.
She looked in and there was my
mother laughing at a memory in
the memory jar.
This painting / collage is
filled with strips that all
begin with "I
remember..." When my
mother passed away, I brought
the memory jar back to my home
as I am now the keeper of
memories.
"I’m
confused", my mother
reported when I called her
one morning. "Where is
everyone? I feel like I’m
all alone. Has everyone
forgotten about me? It's
like I’m in a wilderness".
"I haven't forgotten about
you", I replied. "Here I am
with your morning call.
Every morning I coaxed her
through her day. "What day
is it?" she would ask. Time
was a slippery devil, it
kept changing, never
standing still. On top of
the refrigerator was a large
digital display with the day
and time in red. She
would read it to me.
"Monday, 8:35" I reminded
her to take her pills and
she would go to her pill
box. "Is today Monday?" she
asked. We again established
that it was Monday. "Who is
coming today?" she asked me
yet again. I repeated
myself many times.
Each time she asked, it was
a new question for her.
My mother was losing
memory. Five years
earlier she was fine. My
late father's memory loss
was more severe and perhaps
overshadowed her more
gradual decline. She had
been on a plateau for a long
time, not great, but not
terrible either. My sister
and I had adjusted to this
new normal when suddenly the
ground beneath us shifted
abruptly, the floor of a
crazy fun house dropping
suddenly, our stomachs
lurched with it.
I was intrigued with her
description of her
experience, a wilderness. I
was surprised that she could
identify her confusion,
perhaps a stage along the
way until she would be lost
in that wilderness and the
confusion that it
represents. I pondered
this wilderness, this new
and confusing world that she
was entering. What would she
take with her, what would
she see and hear?
Her cat was her
companion and gave her
comfort, another living,
breathing creature. Her cat
would accompany her into
this wilderness. My mother
wrote a lot of notes to
herself. Not always logical,
she wrote down times that
five minutes later would be
obsolete. It was the act of
writing that helped fix her
reality.
I pictured a path of yellow
post-it notes, a yellow
brick road of sorts with her
cat leading the way, her
shadow behind. A thick and
tangled forest in
front. My phone call
reverberating in waves, an
anchor for her as she stood
before this forest.
These are a
couple of my
favorites that
are
deconstructed in
the painting.
Everybody
has an idea and they work it.-
my mom
My mother was an artist. She
never had a show and the last
art class she took was when she
was pregnant with my brother
over 60 years ago. She quit when
she could no longer fit in the
seats. It was her love of art
that spurred me on in my
explorations, that made it
tangible.
We would go to the Chicago Art
Institute and she would get
postcards of her favorite
paintings, She put the
postcards in a little kitchen
gallery, glancing up at them as
she cooked or washed dishes, her
little oasis of personal
expression.
My mother became a first grade
teacher and carried her love of
art into her classroom. She was
known for her puppets. She
constructed them of paper-mâché
with carefully stitched
clothing, paws or hooves and
tails.
In her late 80s, she was
contending with memory loss. Her
world had shrunk as her ability
to retain the thread of a story
had faltered and reading had
fallen by the wayside. Her
problem was how to occupy her
time now that books no longer
filled her days. She was a
purposeful person and needed a
reason to get up each morning.
She found that in a new pursuit,
collaging. Or as she called it,
cutting and pasting. Each
morning she got her notebook,
her newspaper and her glue and
scissors and began to
cut. My mom used to
teach first grade so I suspect
this was a familiar activity .
Over time her images began to
overlap, to meld together, color
and form juxtaposed in
unexpected and interesting
combinations. Virtually anything
was grist for the mill. She
worked at this like a job,
focused and intent, highly
purposeful. She knew what she
liked. She always did.
I liked what she was doing and
sometimes envied her ability to
suspend planning. I would
agonize over finding the perfect
arrangement of imagery. She
followed her eye and just as a
photographer takes many pictures
to get the critical moment, she
just kept producing and her work
was often quite interesting. She
told me"everybody has an idea
and works it". This was her
idea.
A few years ago on
my birthday my husband and I
went out to dinner to
celebrate. When we returned,
my phone was blinking. A
message. I played it
back and there were my
parents singing Happy
Birthday to me. My mom
led and my father's gruff
voice picked up the melody.
"Ba da bom bom" my dad added
at the end. Then
silence. "What should
I do now?" my mom asks. My
dad replies, "Hang it
up". It still makes me
chuckle when I hear
that.
Both of my parents had lost
memory. My dad had
been losing memory for
years, my mother's memory
loss was just becoming
apparent. For years my
mother helped my dad,
together since they were 16
and 17, they already shared
many memories.
Then my mother's memory
began to deteriorate too.
I was amazed that they were
able to call me and sing.
That seemed like a complex
task beyond their
abilities. My mother
had stopped making long
distance calls.
My father would never have
remembered a birthday.
Together they were able to
accomplish something that
they could not individually.
Three months to the day, my
father passed away.
The message was preserved by
my phone answering system
and I saved it on my
computer. When my next
birthday rolled around, I
started the day with that
bitter-sweet
recording. The
following year I was at my
mother's on my birthday. We
were going to Israel, a trip
she had always wanted to
do. Anxious to begin
our trip, I woke up at 5am,
I heard my mother awake as
well. I went into her
bedroom. Together we
perched on the side of her
bed. I reminded
her that it was my birthday.
"Oh, Happy Birthday!" she
offered
enthusiastically. She
no longer remembers
birthdays. I
played the recording of her
and my father singing
together. Enough time
had passed that it was now
more sweet than bitter. "I
play this each birthday" I
said.
"It's my birthday
ritual. Someday when
I'm your age, I'll be
listening to you and dad
singing Happy Birthday to
me."
When I decided to paint this
I thought of the components,
my parents, the old wall
phone they had when I was
growing up and a curved row
of birthday cakes denoting
birthdays through time.
Candles cast the glow of
memory. Flickering them into
the present, my birthday
present.
I touched bases
with my mother daily and
one day I hung up the
phone chuckling. "I
just blew your Dad a
kiss", she had said.
"Huh?" I replied. My
father had passed away
some time ago.
Should I be concerned?
When he passed away, my
mother remained in her
home, living alone for the
first time in her life
with the assistance of
some aides who came in
each day.
She hastened to add that
my dad's picture had just
come up on her picture
screen and it was an old
one of which she was quite
fond, hence the kiss.
When my mother was in her
late 80s it was too late
to introduce her to a
computer. We had,
however, often wished we
could easily share
pictures with her.
When a friend mentioned a
digital picture frame
linked to the Internet I
was intrigued. It
allows anyone to email
pictures to the
device. They then
come up automatically on
the screen.
My mother was amazed when
new pictures suddenly
appeared. It was
like magic. She
looked up as she ate
breakfast and there were
images of her recent visit
with her great-grandson.
How did they get into
there she asked? She
recalled how amazed her
immigrant mother was at
her world. Now she
often felt like her as she
observed ours. I
confided to her that
sometimes I'm amazed too.
When I visited her I
scanned some of her old
pictures and added those
as well. For elders
whose memories are
beginning to flag, it
provides a way to keep the
important people in their
life visible and to remind
them of special memories
that they share with
family members.
Sometimes I would ask her
to describe the pictures
and we reminisced together
about shared experiences.
When we first installed it
my sister sent a message
saying not to send more
pictures of our late
father as it made my mom
sad. A short time
later she said to ignore
that earlier instruction
as my mom decided she
liked them. Soon she
was blowing him kisses.
There is a
concept called the Memory
Palace which is a tool to help
one remember. It makes
use of image and spatial sense
to retain memories. The
way it works is that you take
a place you know well, like a
childhood home. You
mentally place images in
different locations often in
odd combinations that help you
to remember. You then
mentally walk around the home
and collect the visual
reminders.
It dawned on me that my
mother's home was a memory
palace, it was part of why it
was so important to her.
She had lived there just shy
of 60 years and her house was
filled with nooks and crannies
of memorabilia, often in odd
combinations. This small
painting captured one of the
bookshelf niches. It
includes a menorah from
France, a ceramic sculpture
based on Velasquez's painting
of Infante Margaurite, a
painting she's always
loved. Behind one of the
candlesticks is a walrus
figure from a cruise she went
on with my father to
Alaska. Behind all of
this was a tray from the
surplus store that my
grandfather used to run in New
York.
I later created a series of
small paintings that formed a
larger piece called the Memory
Palace 2.
While
I was working on my memory
series I was also in an artists'
lab working on the theme of
water. I began to think of
the theme of memory as it
relates to water and it occurred
to me that we use language that
evokes water to describe
memory. Things bubble up,
we experience a flood of
memories. Then I began to
think of how one memory triggers
another. In this case my
mother was thinking about my
grandfather and wondering if he
was left-handed, that in turn
triggered a memory of my
grandmother or her father
telling her to look after her
brother or the dress he made me
as a child. Each memory
nudges another until we have
wandered far afield of where we
began. Things do indeed bubble
up, triggering waves and floods.
This painting is based on a
memory shared by a visitor who
had a loved one who lost memory.
It was submitted to the memory
jar.
The memory was this: The
morning you took the long way
to town in the dead of winter,
and you stopped by the river,
turned off the motor and
rolled down the windows and we
listened to the hundreds of
trumpeter swans.
When I first read this memory I
pictured the car window rolled
partly down with the suggestion
of people within. I
imagined the car blending into
the surroundings of lake and
swans, all of one piece.
This is a second more
whimsical take on a memory
shared by a visitor with a
loved one who lost memory.
After doing the first image
Cacophony, I began to think of
different vantage points and
imagined what it might be like
if I moved the swan into their
space. With that concept I did
a more playful image of the
swan looking into the window
curiously watching the car’s
inhabitants.
This painting is based on a
memory shared by a visitor who
had a loved one who lost memory.
It was submitted to the memory
jar.
This story was of a visit to a
greenhouse with the writer’s
mother when the writer was a few
years old. She recalled
her mother wore a plaid coat
that she had made and using the
same material had made one for
her. My first painting was the
image as I pictured it, lattice
ceiling, a path with the two
characters and the interior
filled with greenery.
This is a
second more whimsical
take on a memory shared
by a visitor with a
loved one who lost
memory.
This painting
was my second run at Cut From
the Same Cloth, but this time
I imagined the viewer outside
of the greenhouse, the windows
fogged up from humidity.
Written on the glass is the
phrase Cut From the Same
Cloth, with just a glimpse of
sharper color where the
letters break the foggy
surface.
I was
working with the idea of memory
and experimenting with imagery
that I found interesting. Within
this jar are honeycomb and the
symbols of a nuclear explosion.
That seemed to capture my
childhood rather well.
A whimsical take on a
memory shared by a visitor with
a loved one who lost
memory. She recalled using
a toy camera to take a picture
of a deer who ventured into the
yard. She painted a vivid
picture of her grandmother
watching lovingly with her
cats-eye glasses.
I pictured them totem-like, the
grandmother with cats-eye
glasses, arms around her
granddaughter as the fawn faced
them. The sunglasses,
camera and the deer’s nose
become the focal points, each in
black with no eyes visible.
When my
mother lost memory and
was no longer able to
retain the thread of a
story, she no longer had
books to fill her
days. Instead she
began to create
collages.Each day she
clipped images from the
newspaper and pasted
them into a collage
album. She told me that
it was her legacy.I now have two boxes filled with
20 albums.Over time her
style evolved and she
showed a preference for
certain colors and
forms.
She was an artistic
person and that was
reflected in much of
her work. In
this painting I picked
imagery that reflected
her choices, looking at
the world through her
eyes.
You
will find a more realistic
image of this story on this
page. Sometimes I have
to paint the realistic image
out of me before I can begin
to play. This is my
more playful version of this
story:
A few years
ago on my birthday, my
husband and I went out to
dinner to celebrate. When
we returned, my phone was
blinking. A message.
I played it back and
there were my parents
singing Happy Birthday to
me. My mom led off
and my father's gruff
voice picked up the
melody. "Ba da bom bom" my
dad added at the end. Then
silence. "What
should I do now?" my mom
asks. My dad replies ”Hang
it up.” It still makes me
chuckle when I hear that.
Both of my
parents had lost memory.
My dad had been
losing memory for years,
my mother's memory loss
was just becoming
apparent. For years
my mother helped my
dad. Together since
they were 16 and 17, they
already shared many
memories. Then my
mother's memory began to
deteriorate too.
I was amazed
that they were able to
call me and sing. That
seemed like a complex task
beyond their abilities.
My mother had
stopped making long
distance calls. My
father would never
have remembered a
birthday. Together they
were able to accomplish
something that they could
not individually.
Three months
to the day, my father
passed away. The
message was preserved
digitally in an email and
I saved it on my computer.
Every birthday since I’ve
begun it by playing that
recording of my parents
singing together. I
hope to play it for many
in the future.
When I decided
to paint this, I thought
of the components, my
mother's special birthday
cake, candles and
flickering lights and the
curled phone cord
stretching to them in the
beyond. Candles cast
the glow of memory,
flickering them into the
present, my birthday
present.
A memory palace is a tool for
remembering often used in memory
competitions. Memory is
spatial. When using a
memory palace the person takes a
place they know well, like a
childhood home and puts images
in different rooms in odd
juxtapositions, then collects
them by mentally going around
the rooms. I realized that my
mother's home was a memory
palace. I lived there from
age 3 until I left for college,
returning each year to visit. My
mother lived there for almost 60
years. When she passed away and
I began to dismantle her home, I
began this series of paintings
of segments of the home that
represented memory and history.
For example, my mother
taught first grade and on the
bookshelf is a winged award for
perfect attendance. Behind it
are her nature guides and my
father's books on music.
Each picture is a story of the
people who lived there.
My mother
always put glass in her windows
or where it would catch the
light. My earliest memory
of gifts to her were colorful
glass bottles. She used to have
three plates in her window, some
were fused glass, some had
bubbles captured within
them. When she passed away
I took two of the plates and put
them in my kitchen window.
Directly outside the window is a
beautiful maple tree that I
watch through the seasons.
It moves from buds to cool
greenery to an amazing orange
tinged with red and then to
branches on which snow
rests. My mother was also
a nature lover and would call us
to the kitchen window, to see a
bird or a sunset. When I look
through the window through those
plates, I feel as if I am
looking through her eyes. This
painting sought to capture that
sensation through the seasons.
My mother used
to be an avid reader,
but as her memory
failed, she couldn't
remember what she just
had read. She needed
something new to occupy
her time and one day
began to collage. She
used her newspaper for
raw material.
On one of my visits I
decided to see if she
might enjoy family
history collage. I was
teaching collage
workshops at local
libraries and was
curious how she would
make use of some of the
materials. I brought
down print outs of
family history pictures
for her use. She did a
nice collage, but I
decided I was imposing
too much structure and
part of what worked so
well for her was the
spontaneity. There was
an odd benefit to
collage with diminished
memory. The
planner and judge was no
longer in charge.
On my next visit, I was
surprised to see that
she had made use of the
images I left behind in
her own way. I had
left an image of my
sister and my
grandmother (see below)
and she had crowned them
with fruit. It reminded
me of icons and
specifically work by
Frieda Kahlo who often
used crowns of flowers
in her
self-portraits. I
decided I needed to do a
painting of her in a
similar fashion and
since I used apples as
my metaphor in the
Roundness of Things, I
decided to carry that
forward into this
painting.
My
mother was the
wisest person I
knew. She was a
searcher with a
curiosity about
the world, open to
wisdom from many
quarters, a
teacher who
carried her wisdom
in a kind and
gentle heart. When
she died, I felt
the world shift.
As I went
through her home
disposing of
belongings, I
realized I was
looking for
something of her
essence. I
found it in a file
titled Notes on
Books Read.
In it she had
excerpts from
books on many
disciplines,
science, history,
novels and Jewish
texts such as the
Talmud, and the
Pirkei Avot,
Ethics of the
Fathers. If
something spoke to
her she wrote it
down and many
excerpts related
to finding meaning
in life, facing
fears and making
good use of our
time in this
world. We
had often talked
about books and as
I perused this
file I felt as if
I was having one
more of our many
conversations.
I used the apple
as a metaphor for
seeking wisdom
starting with that
first bite of the
apple by Eve. I
soon discovered
that apples often
were a metaphor
for preparing for
God’s law.
Rabbinic
literature talks
of how the time
from the first
blossoming until
the ripening of
the fruit is fifty
days, as was the
time from the
Exodus to the
giving of the Law
on Sinai. The
title of the
painting is drawn
from a quote from
Wally Lamb that I
found in my
mother’s file –
“The evidence of
God exists in the
roundness of
things.”
A book lies open
over a branch, its
pages swirling out
into the world.
On its
cover is the title
Pirkei Imahot,
Ethics of the
Mothers. No such
book exists in
print. The wisdom
of mothers is
often passed down
by example and as
oral tradition. I
believe it is one
of the most
powerful sources
of wisdom.
As my mother
lost memory,
she found that
she could no
longer read,
unable to
retain the
thread of a
story. She
decided she
needed a focus
for her days
and as a good
problem solver
she settled on
collage. She
had always
been creative
and we were
delighted that
she had found
something that
gave her days
meaning. Every
morning she
sat in that
chair with her
sweater draped
over the
nearby
chair.
After she
died, the
table was
littered with
what she had
clipped, but
would never
paste. I feel
her presence
in this image,
but also her
absence. I
half expect
her to enter
the frame at
any minute.
I
had been
experimenting
with collage
and uncertain
what to do, I
had drawn a
line which
arced across
the space. It
reminded me of
the memory
jar, a
painting and
theme which
appears
elsewhere on
this site. I
considered
what memories
to put within
it.
One of my
childhood
memories is of
our canary Sonny
who filled the
house with song
and delighted my
mother. While he
was caged, I
thought he might
like a jar which
opened to the
sky.
When Notre Dame
went up in
flames, I was
horrified. It
had been a piece
of the world
that I took for
granted. I had
visited it on
many trips to
Paris and fondly
remembered
wandering
through it with
my late mother
and exploring
the gargoyles
atop with my
husband. I
realized that I
have had that
reaction to far
less valued
buildings. When
they took down
the grain
elevators at the
California
Building, I felt
a
disproportionate
sense of loss.
Place carries an
important place
in our memories
whether it is a
world renowned
building, a
grain silo or a
childhood home.
Sometimes it
meets its demise
during our
lifetime and we
mourn its loss.
This was
how I mourned it.
