Recently, two friends and I went to visit the John Michael Kohler Art Center to view their latest exhibit, “Hiding Places: Memory in the Arts.” The installation was divided into four segments:
· Holding Memory: We keep, preserve, and store memories almost as though they are objects unto themselves.
· Forget Memory: In innovative ways, maintaining a connection with loved ones whose memories have slipped away.
· Shared Memory: Exploring specific memories that we share with others.
· From Memory: The overriding impulse (by some) to log memories by sorting and archiving copious volumes of thoughts on paper.

It was a thought-provoking exhibit. I am not sure if I would have categorized some of it as “art.” Some would probably be more aptly dubbed “assemblages”: collections of objects and words and pictures that make up all the flotsam and jetsam that bump, chase, and bounce around our brains in the course of a lifetime. And then there was the fascinating yet disturbing work of autistic savant artists who spend countless hours, painstakingly “dumping” their internal photographic memory-albums onto paper by reproducing calendars, maps, lists, etc. in impossibly-small script. Whoa.

But the exhibit moved me. I had an epiphany. My children are now young men in their 20s. Like most parents, I have precious memories of them as infants, as toddlers, on their first day of school, at Christmas, as Ninja Turtles at Halloween. Or do I? What I realized is that what mostly passes for memories of them are actually recollections of the photographs in our family photo albums. Truly! Think about it. Think of any event older than a decade ago (maybe even five years ago). Picture it. Now, is there actually a photograph that corresponds to that memory? I’ll bet in most cases there is.

How much of our memory of the important people and events in our lives are actually tied to actual “hard copy” visual imagines: photographs, artwork, and videos? Advertisers believe it takes up to 20 times for an advertising message to take root in a person’s brain. Could most of our memories of our family be due to pleasant perusing of the family photo albums, framed portraits on our walls, and repeated viewing of the old wedding, vacation, graduation and (ewww) childbirth videos?

Creating art can be a way of making a record of what we actually see around us or what our imagination constructs out of our waking and sleeping experiences. Not being an artist, I ask those of you who are: How does your art serve to help you remember the world around you?

Images from the work of Gregory Blackstock.