Mnemotopias Drawings
(Memory of Place)
The Mnemotopias Drawings are a series of small drawings that grew out of my need to be outside walking
in the Maine spring of 1987, and yet to be making drawings. I had been working on the Palimpsest Seriesstain drawings which were themselves outdoors, but I was not. To remedy this I sewed a small shoulder bag, equipped it with pieces of paper, a spoon and some small sacs, and set out walking. The MnemotopiasDrawings are made by marking on paper with naturally occurring pigment colors made from clay, chalk, shale. In the earliest drawings in the series I used only my hands, or sometimes a found implement like a frayed stick. The Mnemotopias drawings are depictions of a memory from the walk and are usually about 7" x 8". There is some overlap between the Palimpsest Series, Map Drawings and Body Drawings, all of which are made while or after walking. For example the piece, Bedding Planes: Rocks in the Bay of Cassis, 2000, while large (52 x 120") and made with the residue of stains technique developed for the Palimpsests, is based on a memory of the landscape.
Recently I have begun to use brushes, and I have expanded the process to include observation and digitally recorded images. I am currently involved in a comparative study of the affects on memory of careful observation, and on the differences between drawings made strictly from memory and those made from a collection of digital images.