Revisiting the Past— Coming to West End Gallery October
The images selected by memory are as arbitrary, as narrow, as elusive as those which the imagination had formed and reality has destroyed. There is no reason why, existing outside ourselves, a real place should conform to the pictures in our memory rather than those in our dreams.
–Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
—L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between (1953)
“Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.
You forget some things, don’t you?
Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road
I am using three passages above for this new painting, Revisiting the Past, mainly because I simply couldn’t decide between them. Each speaks to feelings I get from this piece, particularly the last line from Cormac McCarthy:
You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.
That’s one of those things that is so filled with truth that you don’t question its veracity. While we may remember many of the better moments from our past, it is our lived moments of trauma that hang with us forever, often near the surface of our consciousness and in vivid detail.
It might be said that the kiss and the caress dwell easily in our memory, ready to be pulled up at our prompting whereas the anguish and suffering we have experienced is like a scar over a deep wound, on the surface that sometimes aches in a way we cannot ignore, constantly reminding us of how it came to be there.
There is a dreamlike quality to this painting that reminds of the passage from Proust. I, of course, interpret his words though my own filter. I certainly would not want my reality to consist of my dreams since I have only a few truly good dreams that I can recall, sitting here this morning. The dreams I remember are the ones that still haunt me, the nightmares and night terrors–those that left a scar.
Hardly the stuff on which I would want to build a reality.
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there, the famous first line from the Hartley novel, fits perfectly with this painting for me. We revisit the past from a point in time beyond it. We are not dealing with the past as the same person or with the same circumstances or dynamics. Time has passed and things have changed in many ways. What was once the norm has been lost or altered and the future has revealed things that were hidden at the time.
We have changed, hopefully growing in wisdom and understanding. Our perspective is from more distant point now, one that allows us to have a more objective overview. We can now hold it up and turn it to get a better idea of what it was and now means to us, like a scientist examining a specimen.
It might still hurt and haunt but at least we know the what and how of it. Maybe even the why, though sometimes the why of anything can be elusive, living completely hidden in the mind of others.
This is one of those paintings that can say a lot to someone who has ever been haunted by the past or their dreams. I can’t speak for those who haven’t experienced either.
They might be the lucky ones. Or not. Maybe we need some form of haunting in our lives.
I don’t know.
I have to stop now. Time to go to work. The painting, Revisiting the Past is 14″ by 14″ on canvas and will be available as part of Guiding Light, my solo show at the West End Gallery that opens October 17.
Redtree Times 