{"id":1432,"date":"2013-07-14T11:30:37","date_gmt":"2013-07-14T18:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/?p=1432"},"modified":"2013-11-08T20:55:40","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T04:55:40","slug":"the-power-of-memory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2013\/writing\/the-power-of-memory\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Memory"},"content":{"rendered":"

I remember when I was counseling others, one of the things that came up was the power of memory. Whatever happens to us, our body doesn\u2019t forget. The joys, the sorrows\u2014they\u2019re all tucked away only to emerge at the most surprising times. To recall what once was can help us make sense of our lives.<\/p>\n

\"My

My Baba, Lukia Mazurec<\/p><\/div>\n

Memory marks the\u00a0writing of my baba\u2019s story, given to me through the lips of my mother. She was the storyteller in the family, repeating what her mother had remembered, what her family had endured in Russia during the first world war and afterwards under Polish occupation. As I write my family\u2019s saga, I hear their voices, or at least my memory of them. And though I wasn\u2019t there, the power of memory, my grandmother\u2019s and mother\u2019s, affects me and I end up crying or laughing at my computer. I\u2019m also left with a greater understanding of my family\u2019s personal sacrifices, ones that have served to enhance my life.<\/p>\n

So it was with great interest, that I went to the Vancouver Art Gallery<\/a> to hear a curator speak of how Martin Honert<\/a>, a German artist, uses memory in his sculptures. The curator mentioned that Honert\u00a0 is the product not only of his family but of his country. His parents were the ones who questioned the generation before on what had happened during the dark days of Germany, when the National Socialist Party had committed\u00a0many crimes against humanity, chiefly, the Holocaust. His parents were the ones who wondered about the silence, the denials, and their countrymen\u2019s attempts to reframe what had happened.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0Honert is one generation<\/p>\n

\"Sculpture<\/a>

Sculpture by Martin Honert<\/p><\/div>\n

removed from his parents and his art, though it doesn\u2019t speak directly to those questions, conveys a settling or a return to childhood wonders. Perhaps he speaks for his generation, a need to move on, to distance oneself from what was. Or perhaps it\u2019s me, the viewer, that is putting this kind of meaning into his work.<\/p>\n

Of his pieces, I was particularly struck by the young boy sitting at a table. It was executed realistically and colored in muted shades of maroon and grey and beige. He shaded the boy\u2019s face, one side dark, and one side light. For me, it represented the light and dark of the country, and perhaps of all our souls.<\/p>\n

\"Maus<\/a>

Maus Book cover, as shown on Wikipedia.org<\/p><\/div>\n

Another artist, whose work I recently saw at the Vancouver Art Gallery, was Art Spiegelman<\/a>. He worked with his father\u2019s memories of what he\u2019d experienced as a Holocaust survivor. Art Spiegelman used his comic genius in his graphic novel, Maus<\/a>, to document his father\u2019s struggles and agony during that horrific time. This novel won him a Pulitzer prize. It also connected him to his father, a man he had not understood until he\u2019d listened and digested his father\u2019s painful memories.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m almost finished writing my grandmother\u2019s story, but I know it won\u2019t be the end of my family\u2019s memories. I hope to pass them on through this memoir, to enlighten generations to come, to help them remember what once was.<\/p>\n

For another take on memory, check out Marylin Warner’s blog<\/a>. As a tribute to her mother, who’s lost much of her memory through dementia, Marylin posts stories from the past and\u00a0comments on how this loss has affected her mother and those around her.<\/p>\n

How do you use memory in your work? Do you feel it\u2019s power? Does it seep in when you least expect it? I\u2019d love to hear your comments.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember when I was counseling others, one of the things that came up was the power of memory. Whatever happens to us, our body doesn\u2019t forget. The joys, the… <\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,88,4],"tags":[520,78,521,522,525,36,523,27,151,524,5],"class_list":["post-1432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-life","category-writing","tag-art-spiegelman","tag-diana-stevan","tag-martin-honert","tag-marylin-warner","tag-maus","tag-memoir","tag-power-of-memory","tag-stories","tag-storyteller","tag-vancouver-art-gallery","tag-writing-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LuVB-n6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":700,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/writing\/truth-and-fiction-in-the-writing-of-memoirs\/","url_meta":{"origin":1432,"position":0},"title":"Truth and Fiction in the Writing of Memoirs","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"23 \u0412\u0435\u0440\u0435\u0441\u043d\u044f, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"My mother is a born storyteller. 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