Memoirous

I recently picked up at the library a coffee table-size book, okay, coffee table book, about Georgia O’Keefe called To See Takes Time. The essence of this book ticked all the right boxes for me: *minutia=O’Keefe spent time on small details, looking at and studying common everyday objects to represent in her drawings *she would KEEP COMING BACK to a subject, not so much to perfect it, but to find release from the hold it had over her—just like a memory we keep returning to She did this throughout her artistic career, to the end of her life. Never one and done. She’d revisit a spiral, finding the diddle in nature, in breaking sea waves, in clouds and the wind. She’d attach different color schemes, thickness to the spirals. Play and experimentation. In the repetition came discovery, some new aspect or facet. With flash memoir, a memory sits with us, often interjecting itself unwanted or called upon. It is as if the memory needs to be worked out, tugged and transformed like taffy. Lat...

If I travel far back in time I am able to observe dinosaurs. Sometime around age 5 I went with my parents in the car to a fiberglass dinosaur exhibit in a shopping center parking lot. They were huge—bigger than a kindergartner! —on flatbed trucks. I remember their automaton necks wagging, a flash of plastic teeth, the flip of a tail. I riddled my parents with questions: Are they still around? How long ago did they die out? Were they really this big? What did they eat? They were the most majestic thing I’d ever seen, and later, whenever passing that shopping center, I’d scan the parking lot for remnants of dinosaurs.

In my twenties there was an unspoken rule: at least once a month you had to either have a breakdown or run out of gas. There were variations, but it all added up to sometime around 2 a.m. being stuck somewhere and trying to figure out who to call—but first we’d have to find a pay phone. Somewhere in my collective memory I see a parking lot, a sea of tarmac with my little red/orange Volkswagen swimming in it. This was ten times better than that time beside the 4-lane highway, but still I was unfamiliar with this side of town. Plus, I might also have been a little woozy from lack of sleep. I turned the key and nothing, just click. Which meant I had left the lights on and would need a jump. I went through the Rollo-deck of my mind. That’s what’s now known as contacts on your Smart phone. I thought of Bob, he was always up for a midnight adventure. Even though Nicole was super busy, the smartest girl in the school, she’d throw on shoes and come looking for me. Wells might do it, u...

Dad and I sat in the parked car waiting for my ride to come pick me up. Before on-line websites there used to be message boards where folks tacked up information. That’s where I found the phone number of a guy heading up to Chicago. I’d gone home to sort through the rest of my stuff as my parents had sold their house. It would be my last chance in the house where I grew up, and though I wanted to salvage a lot more momentos, I had to leave a lot behind. Since Dad had retired, they were moving to a resort community with a view to spending their golden years golfing. We waited in a Denny’s parking lot in awkward silence. It had not been a happy transition. For some reason I couldn’t understand: Mom and Dad were worried about me. I’d chosen to live in a commune. I didn’t want to join the rat race and live a suburban lifestyle of middleclass mediocrity. Not that anyone was promising me any of that. Basically I didn’t know how to go about getting a job after graduating college. So we s...

We’d had another argument and so I went for a walk after dinner. It was dark, but darkness is only relative in the city. There is light everywhere. The atmosphere around the arc lamps sends diffused halos rippling out to the blurry edges. I walked along the shore of Lake Michigan and then through the bird sanctuary where everything was silent; from across the harbor came the muffled strum of auto traffic on the Drive. Popping out of the Magic Hedge and about to cross the parking lot, I spied a coyote silhouetted, the bristled hairs on his back standing up. He turned to look at me, the only two figures on an asphalt landscape. After a minute he galloped off and I continued circumnavigating the promenade before turning toward home.

I remember standing in a parking lot saying goodbye not knowing if I’d ever see my friends again. After college time and money were like chains squeezing me tighter and tighter. I had to work, and travel was unpredictable. I couldn’t rely on my car to get across town let alone across two states to come visit. If I even had the money for gas. We were all on the brink of change. No one knew where they’d be in a year. What once seemed forever was an illusion, even illusions seemed transitory. Quicksand was all around us. We held on tight as we hugged each other good bye. Years later when we reunited we were no longer the same people.

Working In Series What is a Series? Simply put, it is a group of pieces based on a common element or group of elements.   You can base a series on subject matter, a technique, a particular set of materials, a group of visual elements, or a compositional format.  A series can be created in an afternoon – as in a group of quick collage studies – or last a lifetime.  Many artists keep several series going throughout their careers. ·          Working in series allows you to explore ideas more thoroughly, give them some breathing room. ·          Working in series gives you the opportunity to try out different solutions to visual “problems”, and explore multiple possibilities. ·          Working in series gives your art practice focus and momentum.  Rather than face the blank canvas with too many possibilities to choose from, the paramete...