I sometimes wonder how painters from way back felt when photography was invented. They probably thought they’d be out of a job! Kind of like how a lot of us *creative* folks feel about AI, lol. Or wheelwrights when they invented cars or film camera humans when they made camera phones. It’s just how it is, I guess. I mean if things like that didn’t happen we’d all still be digging holes whenever we needed to go to the jon or hitting the jungle for lunch (or something to wear). That said, I’d like to say a few things about painting for memory. This does involve painting from memory, but I wanted to go into painting or drawing something to save it for a time when maybe our memory cells don’t work so well anymore. Or to save it for when things change so drastically that the thingy you’re saving isn’t likely to ever for never no matter what forever happen again. So that when you look at the painting, you remember ~ and maybe even relive it. Whose memory?This happens unintentionally sometimes, the way I mentioned when I wrote my Romp Down Memory Lane. But the difference between the work there and the kind of work I’m about to talk about is that when you paint for memory, you do it for remembering something in particular, on purpose. Usually I think artists do this for themselves. But I think sometimes the artist will do it for somebody else, or somebodies ~ in case the artist means for a whole bunch of people to remember something ~ usually significant, the we-must-never-forget-this-ever kind. But I’m not necessarily talking about paintings for remembering big deal things like a martyrdom or a war. You can paint even just small things like the last holiday you went on out of town, the house you used to live in, or somebody’s birthday (or the somebody). Also, maybe you don’t necessarily want to remember something ~ but to just record it, like you would in a journal or a diary. You know how you write, say ‘Dentist 10AM’ in your planner or whatever next to the date? (Don’t laugh, I still have the kind of planners that our ancestors used.) Or maybe like how they tell you to keep a journal for therapy. Just like that, only it’s a painting. (Although unless you’re Orin Scrivello, DDS I suppose you wouldn’t paint your dental appointment LOL) Anyway whatever it is, and whoever it’s for, here are a few ways for you to paint for memory. Just paint the thing from memory…(Way to go, Captain Obvi.) You can go the vignette-slash-slice of life route, where you pick out a scene and just stuff everything in it ~ the setting, the folks who were there, what they were wearing, what they were doing. If you were there, you can paint yourself into the scene, or, you can paint it from your own point of view (you know, First Person Shooter style). This is probably the easiest way to go about it. Back in the day (as in before cameras) this was generally the only way, really, since there was pretty much no way else. I reckon for some of these paintings a lot more research went into the work, and a lot of, well I was going to say conjecturing. But I’ll say, rather, interpreting since I guess a lot of that research was text, and there weren’t always going to be eye witnesses or artefacts to help you along. (So sorry, I’m writing this without doing any homework.) Like maybe, Goya actually did witness The Third of May, but I don’t suppose Jacques-Louis David was there at the Death of Socrates any more than Botong Francisco could’ve been there at The Martyrdom of Jose Rizal. …but you don’t have to paint the whole thing.At the risk of sounding lazy (which I’ll admit I am), maybe you don’t have to paint a scene or an event in its entirety ~ sometimes just one thing, or one person is enough. Like Napoleon’s coronation ~ where Jacques-Louis painted the whole nine yards, Ingres just did Nap himself (I mean yeah I know I know, and, I know, but you get what I mean). I don’t know if Van Gogh meant for it to be for memory (for all I know maybe he was just casting round for something to do a still life of), but he painted Gaugin’s chair. Of course he painted Paul himself, too, and I guess it goes without saying that all portraiture is meant to be for memory, anyhow. (And that chair is a kind of portrait, and portraits don’t have to be of the person, and so on and so forth). I guess what I’m saying is you don’t have to paint an entire Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte if you wanted to *jot down* the Sunday afternoon you spent gossiping with family at some mall cafe. You know how folks these days like to take pictures of their lattes? Maybe painting the coffee you had might be enough. Or paint another thing for the thing.I’m really big on symbolism in my own work ~ maybe because I’m lazy or I’m just not skilled or smart enough to paint the whole thing or the people in it. But more than anything I find that this, for me, is far more effective in recalling certain things to my mind, maybe even more than an actual photo or video. I know it sounds hokey, but I think it’s because when you do this, you’re painting or etching it into your brain ~ and you have an added, tactile sensory experience to heighten what you remember seeing or hearing, or smelling. If something (physically) touched you during the thing, the added experience of painting (holding your brush or your knife or whatever and touching your prepared surface) reinforces it. Plus (don’t laugh), symbolism kind of ‘hides’ things x doesn’t say things flat out. This can be useful (if you’re a coward x sneak x bully like me) if you’re showing your piece in public, and the people involved might see it LOL. Besides, it’s kind of nice when there’s a story in there somewhere like a private joke only you and maybe a select few know about. A Few Things From My MemoryHaving said all that, I’d like to share a few things I’d painted for memory, which I’m very glad I did, I guess. I’m not big on photography (you can probably tell) in the sense that I’ve always held that if a thing was really memorable you wouldn’t need photos. But now I’m at that age where people think about what happens when your brain just doesn’t get as much blood, proteins, and hormones as it used to. Not that there’s a whole lot in my life I particularly want to hang on to, or anything, it’s just you know. The little things. A World Filled With Love documents the four years I spent in art school ~ my classmates, my friends from the radio station where I worked when I wasn’t in class, some of the plates I made for class, the stray cat and doggo who lived there, the little red truck I used to have </3, the field trip we went on in Tagaytay, the Lantern Parades I was in, the professor I accidentally whacked in the backside with a wet mop. And, that tree with orange flowers I loved so much growing on the hill that led to my parents’ house. Any kind of weather or light, that tree always looked so beautiful to me. To this day I don’t know what kind of tree it is (no it wasn’t a flame tree, the flowers were big, like, tulipsy). Windy Day 2 records how we used to have this vacation home in Tagaytay (well Batangas, actually) ~ and members of my family, the toys (and the pets </3), friends, and dreams I had, and the daemon that plagued me. (He’s a lot more tame these days.) Remember I mentioned symbolism? Well, my dad used to be the sun, mom was the moon, my brothers were a dragon, a lion, an eagle, a gryphon, and a bear, and my sister was a swan but here she’s a swonkey. Salubong is one of those ‘just paint the thing from memory’ things. To sum up what I shared about this piece with jillafriends a while back, it records the time I went to see a Salubong with my grandparents, my uncle, and my aunt. A lot of it was the way I remembered it although it had been 20 odd years since we went. My little niece is in the picture, too (the angel lifting the veil of mourning off of Mama Mary) ~ she ‘sat’ for this piece, although she hadn’t been born yet. She’s only about 11 now, I think, and both my grandparents are gone now so I’m really glad I did this ~ one of those few memories I want to hold on to. One more memory I definitely want to hang on to (the way Eilonwy shouldn’t’ve wanted to give up a single summer day) is At home in the jillahouse. This was when I got sick last year and my mom came over to bring me goodies. To paraphrase my dear Watson, ‘it was worth a Covid ~ it was worth many Covids.’ And like the blue watercolour at the beginning of this post, it records what the jillahouse looks like and what it’s like living and working in my dream-house-slash-studio (or well, jillaflat, more like lol). I mean I’m perfectly content to die here n all, but who knows what the future might bring, and I think I’ll want to remember this apartment, too. Anyway I know it’s just so much easier to whip out your phone and take a photo or a video, but believe me when I say it’s different when you paint for memory. It’s like eating something really, really scrummy ~ with a photo or a video, you taste it again, but a painting? You savour every single flavour (and, depending on *how much* you put into it), down to the smallest pinch of salt. * Interested in any of the pieces in this post?
Drop me a line to let me know and I'll let you know if it's still available, or how soon I can make something similar just for you.
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