“Not a Single Dime”

STATEMENT

Oscar Wilde once said, “Memory is a diary we all carry about with us.”

When my mother spoke of her childhood memories, I was captivated for she was a very good storyteller, explaining details colorfully, nurturing my imagination, and inspiring me to be an inquisitive soul and explorer. As a child, I was always asking questions and being so talkative that my grandfather would offer me a dime to be silent for ten minutes. Ten minutes to a child is forever, so I never was able to acquire a dime from my grandfather.

As I have recently drifted over the senior mark of my journey, “Not a Single Dime” is about my longing to tell my stories and experiences. During the last few months of my mothers’ journey, she steadily declined with increasing Dementia and an inability to recall those stories that once held me spellbound. I loved her stories and will hold onto those memories forever. I hope that I will be able to remember my stories long into the future.

As a visual storyteller, I am revisiting segments of my recollections to create this visual diary. Good or bad we hold our memories as souvenirs of our being in this place and time, like a diary we all carry.

The majority of the props I am using are things that I have kept since childhood holding on to the past and that one day of telling a story. These things and more, the tea set, the horse, a large doll, farm animals, school books, the house, my grandfather’s boat, and even my hair that was cut when I was six years old.