You Take the Cake

When I sat to write my 99 memories, I wrote my 49 bad memories first to get them out of the way, to make space for the good memories to come forward.

I wrote down my earliest bad memory and worked my way forward in time until I had 49.

The only way I could bring to the front 50 benign memories, was to imagine myself in various places and spaces I’ve lived and been since birth. Once I pictured myself outside and inside these past rooms, I started to remember various benign things that happened.

It took a morning to write my bad memories and 2 months to write the not-that-bad-to-good memories I came to.

Finding my benign memories was much like an excavation, digging first into a time, then into a place, then into a room, then deeper still, concentrating on specific objects, furniture, wallpaper...

If I was having trouble with the dig, I spent time preparing for drawing the memories I had so far. For each memory, I determined a sans-punctuation, 90-character array, switching out words, rephrasing, so the text still comprised a complete sentence or sentences.

Each memory’s 90 letters are imprinted by hand one letter at a time.

Each impression with an inked letter becomes a mark, 90 marks (letters) per memory. I pressed each letter with my finger and thumb, one after the other, into ink then onto the paper.

To make more of an “impression,” I traced over the ink once it dried with graphite. I like that these works are now more like drawings, rather than the prints they would have been, had I used a letterpress.

The act of editing each benign memory, then marking it on the paper, one letter at a time, pressed the memory more firmly into the forefront of my brain, stamping it to its spot in my rolodex.

I also drew objects and shapes from these memories and others, from earliest to most recent.

My intention with my bad memories, once I determined their 90 characters, was to randomize the letters before I drew them. I would literally scramble the 90 letters making up the array before committing them to ink.

I didn’t feel comfortable presenting my traumatic memories in a way people could plainly read; and, I wanted to protect my audience.

However, as I edited each bad memory into the arrays, each becoming more focused upon my rolodex as I concentrated on it, I realized I didn’t want to impress them into paper, at all.

Even though these bad memories would be impossible to read (unless one took time to unscramble), I didn’t want people taking them into their homes. I wanted to do something more akin to letting the bad memories go.

At MEMORY, I will draw my bad memories side-by-side on a long white pedestal, each memory’s 90 characters randomized as planned. Instead of stamping, I will stencil all 4,410 letters, a 9-by-490-character array.

Each participant will erase 9 letters of his or her choice. Once all the letters are erased, the installation will be complete.