What if you picked a year and grabbed the journal you kept from that time? What if you painted your way through it? 

 

That’s what I did with Memory Walk. I pulled out a journal from 1995 and began painting my way through that year. The words, thoughts, and emotions recorded in those pages became starting points for the images.

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This work is part of a larger series inspired by daily walks with my mom who is experiencing dementia. These walks have become a quiet ritual - a way of being together in the present while her connection to the past becomes part of our daily conversation. As we walk, I find myself wondering which stories/moment/years I would choose to return to. Which ones would I want to walk through again?

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I knew I wanted to return to 1995. My Mamma Mia year - full of traveling, moving, falling in love with 3 delicious boys, and imagining a life full of possibility. Looking back through the journal, I found a younger version of myself and I wanted to communicate with her and send her so much love.  Painting these has felt like a love letter to her.

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Memory Walk is about the way we carry our past into the present. It is about communicating with our younger selves and having compassion for our current selves who may not be who everyone else thought we should be.  

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What year would you paint?