
memory translates | mixed media on birch panel | 12 x 12 in | $100 USD | framed
Watching the railcars click by, I remember a house from my childhood. The train track was at the edge of our backyard. It was the same house where we had Sissy the cat. During the summer, with Sissy in our lap, we sat in lawn chairs in the backyard that could be repaired if they wore out by weaving plastic strips together. The trains roared by as we played and became part of my memory.
As a college student in Cincinnati, I walked on the tracks with my best friend. The train ran through her back yard too. Hands in our jacket pockets, we talked about our dreams and thrift store finds. In October, those walks gave us private, front row seats watching the most beautiful trees change color and discard their leaves in the wind.
In my car stopped at the tracks, I try not to look at my phone and instead squint at the graffiti whizzing by. Thinking about where the artist is right at this moment and wondering if they got the satisfaction they wanted from their latest painting session on a boxcar. The cars are weathered and aging but they are still powerful and sturdy. I stare at the cars with rusted bits and layers of failing paint. I can’t get enough of the rust.
And here again, the way I have experienced trains through my senses and store them in my memory, showing up in my paint.
Framed dimensions of artwork: 13 1/2 H x 13 1/2 W x 3/4 D (inches).