Homage to the Forgotten Ones

Diary Drawing no. 11

Early February greetings! I've been squirreled away in the studio working on this diary drawing project, which has also been the subject of my most recent posts. I am now up to no. 28 of the 36 I plan to make, so I'll share them in small groups over the next couple weeks. 

Diary Drawing no. 12

Just to recap, these drawings are a kind of homage to the ordinary folks, countless generations of them, whose lives are lived in the richness of days punctuated by highs and lows, births and deaths, milestones large and small....just like ours. Over time and over the course of a deepening history, these lives become anonymous....forgotten. And yet, each one of us lives and breathes because of them, we carry their DNA and our lives are built on the experiences and memory of those who came before.

Diary Drawing no. 13

These anonymous diary drawings pay homage to those ordinary folks, living out their lives across the globe....countless generations of them. These are the "what if" diary pages of the people who have come before.....creating a trace where one doesn't exist.

Diary Drawing no. 14

This theme is not a new one for me, but one that has always been close to my heart. This notion of remembering and forgetting, as well the layering of history and the ephemeral nature of experience runs through all my work. A few recent additions to my bookshelves, which I'll share below, speak to these ideas in different ways.  Personal and collective history, the sense of place and a kind of grounding...the bittersweet nature of a life lived....these are things which unite us all.

Diary Drawing no. 15

Still reading Common People: In Pursuit of My Ancestors....fascinating!

Just started The Shepherd's Life....but was immediately immersed....beautifully written.

War & Turpentine is one of those books that is hard to finish...and I did reluctantly. It has been favorably compared with W. G. Sebald, one of my favorite authors. While I can see the connection,  this one is different. I wouldn't say it is truly a novel....more of a memoir and a memoir within a memoir. 

I'll leave you with a beautiful quote from James Rebanks taken from The Shepherd's Life:

"My grandfather was, quite simply, one of the great forgotten silent majority of people who live, work, love, and die without leaving much written trace that they were ever here. He was, and we his descendants remain, essentially nobodies as far as anyone else is concerned. But that's the point. Landscapes like ours were created by and survive through the efforts of nobodies."

That sentiment is the same one that underpins this these diary pages. Although they are a product of my own creation, they are a simple, quite homage and an appreciation for those who have gone before....the nobodies.