My art is an exploration of the nature of memory. I do not merely recall memories and illustrate them with exacting detail. Rather, I analyze them and demonstrate their behavior through art. This means I must think about what memories are, what triggers them, and what forms those memories take. By examining memories of my childhood I am better able to understand how memories work in general. My explorations and findings are then revealed through my art. Each piece is a representation of a part of my own life. However, as I am very interested in the inclusion of viewers into my work, I do not make the pieces appear specific to myself. Instead, I create each piece in such a way that viewers can use their imaginations to construct stories or otherwise relate what they see back to themselves. Ideally, each piece carries personal significance for me, demonstrates the behavior of memories, and enraptures viewers in stories or memories of their own.

A common dictionary defines memory as "a mental impression retained; a recollection," (Steinmetz, 819). In other words, a memory is what is left in our minds from a past experience. These impressions or recollections are based entirely on our personal perspectives. Furthermore, we continually encounter numerous factors throughout our daily lives that cause us to recall the events of our pasts. People, places and spaces, objects, sounds, smells, and even tactile sensations trigger memories. Within this large array of things that cause memories, there are two main categories, direct links and indirect or associative links. Pictures are good examples of direct links. They document specific events or periods of time. In fact, they are taken with the express purpose of faithfully remembering past situations. Some objects act in similar ways. Small items of memorabilia (tourist products and insignia items) are directly linked to their place of origin. In contrast, indirect or associative links are connections formed through a personal experience that may be unrelated to the function of or commonly held associations with objects and sensations. Materials and spaces provide associative links. For example, the feel of a piece of fabric may remind one of a childhood blanket or stuffed animal. Similarly, one may associate steep, narrow staircases with those found in one's grandparents' house. In both cases, the actual object or place has no direct connection to the person's past and may be interpreted differently by another party. Nevertheless, the subjective resemblance of the current situation to that of the past is enough to trigger the memory. I have mainly focused on these types of associative links because they allow multiple interpretations and therefore enable more people to become involved with my art.

In order for my works to successfully trigger memories, I have used materials to evoke aspects of the past. For example, I intentionally used fuzzy, maroonish fabric in my car piece. Although it is not the exact material from my family's former car, its resemblance is close enough to spark my memories. Spending so many hours during car trips sitting in those fuzzy seats really ingrained their feel in my mind. This goes to show that information gathered by all our senses contributes to our memories. We do not just remember how an object looks, we also remember how it felt, how it smelled, or even how it sounded. Thus, materials that closely resemble those of our pasts more effectively recall our experiences.

My interest in the purposeful use of particular materials is an issue found within the work of Joseph Beuys. Born in Krefeld in 1881, Beuys is a German Expressionist Sculptor whose works focus on a recreation of his life experiences. One event that had a tremendous impact on his works occurred during his years of service in the Luftwaffe. During the winter of 1943, Beuys' plane crashed in the Crimea, just on the German border. Although the crash was severe, killing his second crewman, Beuys managed to barely survive. A group of nomadic Tartars found Beuys in the wreckage and nursed him back to health. They treated his wounds with animal fat and carefully wrapped him in felt to keep him warm. "That brief life with the Tartars evoked images that he never forgot, and they appeared, metamorphosed, in many of his Actions. Felt and fat became his basic sculptural materials," (Stachelhaus, 22). Through the use of these "energy-rich" materials, his works effectively evoke the experience that had changed his life (Stachelhaus, 126). It is precisely this highly charged use of materials that has drawn me to Beuys and inspired my works.

In addition to evoking the past through materials, Beuys often reenacts his experiences - an aspect that I have not used in my works. I am only interested in the qualities of materials that evoke experiences. Nevertheless, like Beuys, I have not explicitly told viewers what memories I have recalled. During interviews he may hint at a connection between his works and his near death experience, however the works themselves do not clearly state the relationship. Similarly, my works allude to the events of my memories yet never fully reveal their identity to viewers. My intention is not to reenact my past experiences, but to evoke them in such a way that viewers are not limited to a singular interpretation.

Although materials are compelling triggers, architectural spaces, particularly homes, are perhaps the most important contexts for our memories. In a book entitled The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard comments on the importance of our living spaces in shaping our memories and lives. He believes that our memories are generally inseparable from the places in which the original events transpired. Bachelard further states that almost all our environments can be linked to the places where we grew up (Bachelard, 7-8). Our childhood homes are the most familiar to us, and thus seem to be the most comfortable and safe places we know. Throughout our lives, we model our spaces after those we enjoyed during our childhood. Although we constantly look back at our past homes, we do not necessarily see them as whole entities. Instead, Bachelard indicates that we see the houses in fragments (Bachelard, 57). We envision one particular room, then flash to another space without always seeing the clear connection between the two places. This recollection causes fragmentary images that often re-assemble themselves in varying combinations. Nevertheless, individual rooms often retain their structure. Within the confines of a particular space, it is possible to recall many of the features of that room. By envisioning the space defined by floor, walls, and ceiling all the elements of the room take their places. Furthermore, the feeling of the original room remains. Taking Bachelard's comments to heart, I have created some pieces that explore the relationship between a place and my memory.

My hallway piece examines the connection between the experience I remember and the place in which it occurred. Looking at a particular memory, running for safety during a thunderstorm, I have tried to give a sense of how I remember the event. In this case, the hallway is the most important element. Therefore, the piece is composed of the main hallway with its branching hallway and open doorways. In fact, when I think about the event the hallway is the only thing I can see clearly. Anything else that may have been near me at the time, (i.e., a chair, stuffed animals, or even things hanging on walls) does not form a clear image and is therefore omitted from this piece. Discovering the importance of the hallway in remembering this event has provided me with a key for other works.
The identification of a memory with a location is easily found within my hallway piece, however my farmhouse piece takes even greater inspiration from Bachelard's ideas. In this case, I chose an area of my family's old farmhouse. Although I was mainly just an occasional visitor to the house, it still had a tremendous impact on me. Since my memories of the place were formed during my younger years, I tend to remember the house in fragments just as Bachelard suggests. The part I remember most clearly is the stairs leading to the second floor, or attic. An image of that steep and narrow set of stairs is closely linked with two other views of the rooms upstairs. It is because of the close connection between these various views that I have chosen to present the spaces as I have. Each view brings up a different feeling for me that ultimately connects, forming an overall memory of the familiar, old place.

While Bachelard's ideas helped me to think about the importance of space, Giorgio de Chirico was the one who showed me how to present the space. Born in Vólos, Greece in 1888, the Italian artist painted works that bordered on the Surreal, but fell into a style of art known as metaphysical. Going beyond the dreamlike scenes inspired by the unconscious in Surrealism, de Chirico's works incorporated the supernatural. His most notable works include nearly deserted streets, buildings, or other structural spaces with exaggerated perspective that evoke a haunting, ominous dream world. Although many of his spaces seem rather simple, they are complicated by the use of sharply contrasting lights and darks that often form eerie shadows. In fact, in numerous instances, shadows are cast by figures that are not present. Therefore, there is an implied presence. De Chirico's overall evocation of mystery is what I find the most fascinating.

While I have incorporated many of de Chirico's techniques into my own work, I have also chosen to diverge from his ways in some areas. Considering his architectural spaces that allow the imagination to roam through the streets and hallways freely, I have created more sculptural spaces that further enable viewers to enter the works. In my artworks such as the hallway or the farmhouse piece, I have drawn on de Chirico's use of exaggerated perspective and thrown it into the three-dimensional. Just as his locations are drawn from the Italian cities of his childhood, mine are derived from places I occupied or visited during my childhood. Although he occasionally references a specific building in the background, his main spaces, like mine, are general enough to be in any number of locations. To enhance my architectural spaces I have also employed the use of shadows and ambiguity as much as possible. In the hallway piece, light plays a central role in casting the appropriate shadows to highlight areas where an activity might occur. Open doorways in both the hallway and farmhouse pieces provide slightly hidden areas that also imply places where activity may occur. Like de Chirico, I enjoy creating the sense of an action that may happen at any moment. This expectation draws viewers in and leaves them guessing. I think the intrigue and implied presence found throughout de Chirico's work are also found in my architectural works, and are perhaps heightened by my three-dimensional form.

Another artist who uses architectural spaces in her work is Louise Bourgeois. Her spaces more closely resemble my own because they draw from memories of her childhood home. Bourgeois is a twentieth century sculptor who was born on the Left Bank of Paris in 1911. She spent her childhood in France where her parents owned a tapestry restoration studio. In the 30s she moved to New York where she spent the rest of her career working. Her early works consist of primitive looking drawings that exhibit her exploration of the world. Gradually, she began to experiment with sculpture and "discovered that her sculpture had the power and the presence to represent the experiences of her life and, in doing so, to create new experiences, which she could share with those who viewed her work," (Kotik, 18). Her sculptures then turned into installations that were even more powerful. These installations reflect her memories of her childhood home and the relationships that existed within that space. In fact, "the house becomes the major catalyst for memory, for it is in this certain and defined locale that the range of human relationships and feelings - from the most primary to the most complex - take place," (Kotik, 22). Therefore, the spaces within her house are the means through which she remembers her past.

Although Bourgeois draws from experiences of her childhood as I have, her intention is quite different. We are both interested in finding ways that best capture our memories, include our feelings, and still reach the hearts or minds of our audience. However, her art is more about healing and freeing herself from the past. She tries "to give tangible expression to the traumatizing experiences of her own life in a heroic attempt to exorcise them," (Kotik, 18). Furthermore, her installations use segments of human bodies to symbolize human presences and varying relationships from her past. In some instances my works may have included familial relationships, however none of them contain any actual or symbolic human presence. More importantly, I am not interested in using my art as therapy to work through unresolved issues of the past. My interest in childhood relates to the workings of memory. My memories are the means through which I have explored memory in a larger sense. I specifically chose childhood because I am removed from those experiences and can look back at them with a new perspective. Moreover, I think it is amusing and enlightening to think about my past and to see how I have become what I am today. Unlike Bourgeois, or even Beuys with his near death experience, my life has not been filled with major traumas that need reconciling. Despite the difference of intentions between Bourgeois and myself, her room constructions and symbolic forms have helped me figure out ways of making my art open to wide audiences.

Even before creating art that includes larger audiences, I needed to think about the various forms that memories take. Memories generally fall into one of two categories. Memories may either be structurally organized, or they may be collages composed of pieces from different memories. Ultimately, the form of a memory depends on what elements of a situation or object stand out most in one's mind.

The most typical organization of memory is through spatial relationships. This means that objects within our memories are remembered according to other objects and even places. In a study done concerning this issue, it was found that "people impose a hierarchical structure" on space (Tversky, 269). In other words, in a grouping of objects, there is no real order of importance. Since we observe objects from our personal viewpoint, we place an order on them. Depending upon their relevancy to our lives, we may even make these objects much larger than they were. In fact, a size pyramid could be formed in which objects of greater importance are largest and clearest, while objects of lesser importance are increasingly smaller and possibly fainter. It may seem like common sense that we remember according to those objects relating more directly to ourselves; however, this hierarchy sets up a system whereby people actually retain the experience more easily. For example, in order to memorize a series of facts, one may be able to associate each item with a particular location. Therefore, when one is learning the elements of the periodic table, it is common to learn these elements in order according to their locations and associations to other elements on the table. The same is true of objects. "[E]lements may be related to a reference frame as well as to other elements and to groups of elements," (Tversky, 270). We often think of objects according to a context or frame, such as floor, ceiling, and walls, or in relation to a line of other objects. My architectural pieces are excellent examples of this sort of structural organization. The space created by their walls sets the stage for whatever memory is being evoked. Within these spaces objects were placed according to their relationship with other objects. Thus, the works show how remembering one item or space recalls the memory of many others that were in the same area.

Memories that are not structurally organized often take the form of a collage or montage. These memories are formed from an intermingling of different memories. As one remembers singular aspects of an event, the fragments flow together to form a single image of disparate parts. This melange of fragments within a memory is reminiscent of dreams. Although the individual parts of the montage may relate to one another, their combined image does not seem logical.

A painting that typifies the montage is the untitled work by Mary Morez. Mary Morez is a Native American painter and family friend. Sometime during the late 70s or early 80s, she gave a painting to my parents. Since that time, the painting has hung in every house that I have ever lived in. Its presence has made a deep impression on my mind. In the midst of swirling shapes composed of fading patches of varying colors, figures erupt in ways that want to relate to each other. However, closer inspection leads one to see the figures as separate entities overlapping each other and forming various layers of experience. The intertwining of all the figures within this setting leaves an unclear impression of what is actually being recalled even though readings are still possible. Furthermore, the energetic brushstrokes and implied motions give a sense of life to this work that seems to be ever evolving.

In response to Mary's painting and the melange of memories, I have created works that intentionally combine disjointed fragments into a singular object. My car piece is a great example. In thinking of long trips in our family car, I kept recalling many different aspects of the car that floated through my mind in a complete blanket of the experience. I captured these various pieces and put them together in what eventually formed a single object. Quite similar to Mary's painting, elements seem a bit out of place yet ultimately work together. However, unlike Mary's work, my art does not focus on figures and is not solely two-dimensional. Once again, I think my three-dimensional format allows viewers to get more involved in the experiences presented in my works.

Whether presented in the montage form or the structural form, my memories are the basis for my art. Nevertheless, I believe viewers, especially those who do not know me well, should be able to get something out of my art. It has not been my intention to create works that are specific to myself alone. By keeping the imagery to a basic level where I did not present every detail of my personal remembrance, I think my art more easily relates to wider audiences. For example, in Tarantula, I did not clearly depict every aspect of the situation. Instead, I abstracted the images and used uniform color in order to promote multiple interpretations. The more vague or generalized my personal references are, the easier it is for others to reach their own conclusions about my work. In some cases I may have provided viewers with keys, or clues, for reaching my memory, but I certainly did not want to limit their imaginations.

Overall, I believe my art enables all viewers to interact with it in ways that are not specifically related to me. I have tried to give the essence of events occurring during my childhood, but I am certainly not expecting others to know what each piece represents. Instead, I hope that viewers are able to associate with the works and relate them to their lives. Simply knowing that my works are about memories should enable viewers to interact with them and begin thinking about the nature of memory. Noting the structure of spaces and the use of particular objects or materials may clue viewers in to what trigger memories for me. At the same time, these objects and spaces may also trigger memories in viewers. Ideally, viewers will carefully examine my works thinking about the various traits of memories, but will eventually find themselves lost in their own memories.