Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us. – Oscar Wilde
I have been exploring memory and what it is to remember as I watch my mother transform into a person both familiar and unfamiliar. In response, I create using various art forms to find a path through memory and time - mine and hers. Memories often play out like a movie when they are fresh. Over time those movies are overlaid with similar scenes to create a generic but still satisfying memory of something in the past. As time and events continue, the movie can fade and is reduced to shadow-shapes. Sometimes a few words or sensations are all that remains.
This thing I've declared as a series in order to give it a framework is actually an ongoing exploration into my self and my origins. Years ago I came up with the idea of "ritual for remembering" but now see in a backwards kind of clarity, that I was not ready. I did not dig very deeply. Currently I am undergoing a process of curation as I sift through my writings, notes, scraps, finished and unfinished works. All of it is to help me, at this late age, understand where I have come from and what I am developing into.
The question for me is how much of it do I share? Does it matter - is anybody listening? Yet I learn to lay it all out in the sun. I know I am doing this for me first and then for my family but some part of me thinks it could be of benefit to others if only as a spark to pay attention to what your life, you self, is building. And besides, I'm tired of hiding and waiting.
out of time
Part of show at Metchosin ArtPod in the themed call to artists "About Time" - Aug 28-Oct 18, 2026
"time is textured, fragmented by memory - its linearity is disrupted and can cause branching and off-roading"
Part of my ongoing investigation into memory, this piece references my mother's journey through dementia. It's been about 6 years since she began what I think of as her journey through time. The foundation for this piece is a mix of layered papers, some from my mother's grocery and home expense lists she obsessively wrote. These things keep me grounded as I explore her movements through time, a journey that has not always been linear. Now, for the last few years her time travelling has calmed as she settles into a place I imagine has no time.
so it goes
Another in my exploration of memory's entanglement with time. Time feels linear and yet has a quality manifest in memory where it is not pinned to dates or a clock. As I explored time and all the ways language attempted to describe it, I was reminded of the novel Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. In the book, time was shown not as a straight line but a place where past, present and future exist at the same time. "And so it goes" is a phrase used throughout the book which suggested that life goes on everywhere, always. As I've observed my mother's journey through dementia I think understand the concept a little better.
the metaphysics of memory
mixed media: plaster, acrylic, threads, cheese cloth
24 x 36 x 1.5 inches
Part of show at The Metchosin ArtPod in the themed call to artists "Threads - Weaving Narratives" (March 2026)
My guide was this writing fragment which I still have to develop into a poem:
"frayed and fraying, memory moves through landscape, changes direction, wanders, forms new landscapes. with no map, it is a journey of intuition. we trust the threads and markers of our life journey remain findable in the shifting landscape."
memory sometimes
mixed media on cradled board: acrylic, plaster, pencil crayon - 24x24x1.5 in.
Presented at the Metchosin ArtPod show Fleeting — Exalting the Ephemeral
Artist Statement: In response to my mother's ongoing dementia and to my own aging I have been exploring memory and what it is to remember. There is an ethereal quality to memory, to what we store in our minds and bodies. Things rise to the surface of our awareness then slowly, or sometimes rapidly, disintegrate. In "memory sometimes" a swirl of blue fog is a backdrop to the binary code for the word "memory". Overlaid on this, a few memories struggle to the surface. Binary code has a long history and is associated with information storage. How is our memory stored? Can some colour, texture and pattern be enough to store it? How can it be retrieved? In a short poem called "memory sometimes", I explore what it is to be surrounded by a new, beautiful landscape and my efforts to save the feelings and connection I have to it. It begins: "I remember last week's view out the window. the blue habit of it. how it changes - fluid as what it contains". I continue to explore.
past remains
mixed media on cradled board: acrylic, papers, pencil crayon, pastel -20x20x1.5 in.
Part of the Palimpsest - The Not so Blank Slate art show at Metchosin Art Pod in 2024 and Juror's choice award winner
Artist Statement: The title "past remains" refers to memory and its fluidity. For the past four years I've been witnessing my mother's transformation in personality and expression as her dementia has deepened. An additional influence is Sarah McLachlan's "I will Remember You" which rises in my memory when I explore the feeling and expression of "remembering".