The Art Comes First, The Story Comes Later: How Remembrancer Got Her Name

My approach to art-making was formed during my foundational year of expressive arts and journaling training with Lucia Capacchione (may she rest in peace). It was ingrained in me that the art comes first and the words come later. This allows the right brain to express things from the deep subconscious without the censoring and boxing-in of which the verbal left brain is so fond.

We learned to image first, then let the images speak to us. Further training as a SoulCollage® Facilitator reinforced this practice. The bulk of cards in my personal SoulCollage® deck were created intuitively rather than intentionally. That is, I let the cards unfold as they will without too much conscious seeking of specific images to tell a specific story. Once the card is complete, using the “I am one who” framework taught in SoulCollage® or stream-of-consciousness reflective journaling, the card then tells me who it is and what its message is for me.

This is the structure that I work within when making my mosaic art as well. When I start a piece, there is usually a central object or a color story that guides my choice of materials. The pieces come together intuitively and develop a life and story along the way. I rarely have a sense, at the outset, what the piece wants to say. And I don’t approach a new project with any idea of what I want to say. It’s all just pretty pieces to begin with.

It’s only after a piece is finished – or nearly so – that I begin to wonder: what’s this piece’s name? what story is it telling? what does it want me to know?

Then, I sit down with the piece and let it speak to me. I carry it around with me, figuratively speaking, for a while. I let it percolate. I sit down and write in a free-form, exploratory, brainstorming kind of way. Eventually, a story and a name emerge – not necessarily in that order.

That’s what happened with this piece. I started out with an ammonite fossil brooch and some mirrored glass scraps. I could see the ammonite as a faceless face for one of my Spirit Keeper pieces. The mirrored glass felt Klimt-like. A color scheme of copper, gold, silver, bronze emerged. I struggled with the shape of the gown, with whether it was more Klimt-ish to outline it or leave the edges raw, with how to make something somewhat boxy have a feeling of flow. I had envisioned the ammonite as the face of the figure, and the octopus emerging from it as flowing hair. I emphasized movement and added volume with more hair made of rhinestone chain. Whether this was all me thinking my way through or the piece itself guiding me, eventually a figure came together.

She gave me a sense of time and history. She reminded me of a SoulCollage® card in my deck titled Evolving Self, in which all the selves I have been, from infant to crone, form a chain of selves wound into the crone’s hair.

I brainstormed names, seeking a name that would encompass the idea of being the holder of history, the revealer of the stories of self. Knowing that I brainstorm better with another voice to bounce ideas against, I turned to AI as an enhanced thesaurus. I offered a list of names (none of which were quite “it”), and an outline of what I was trying to capture with the name. I asked for a long list, knowing that out of dozens of “not its” something would either be a fit or trigger an association that would lead to one. Out of a sizeable list of wrong answers, Remembrancer emerged.

Once named, her story came freely.

Remembrancer

Floating in the inky sea of Deep Time, the Remembrancer holds your stories – those you have personally lived, those of your ancestral lineage, and those of the culture in which you are steeped.

The many chambers of her mirrored gown are treasure boxes filled with all that has shaped you. A map of your spiraling existence through time, written into the fossil record.

She remembers it all and she reflects it back to you. Open a box and she will remind you who you are. She will tell you stories about yourself until even the darkest moments reveal their gifts.

For what is time but memory, and what is memory but story, and what is story but the gown we wear to proclaim who we are and to dream into who we are becoming?