Commemorate

To be mindful of or keep a live a memory. If you look at the latin derivative com is an intensifying prefix which is added to the noun memorae, a memory. When we commemenorate something we are makin a memory stronger.

Lately it would seem that I use jewelery and bead work to do that. No, I do not think that reinterpretting the things that my gramma handed down or finding things that fit her style and giving them a make-over will bring her back to life. The Force is not that strong with me. But it does help to feel her presence and remember the stories that I was told about her so that I can learn from her strong personality.

I've commemorated trips, friends and past relationships with some form of artwork. In the work that we generate we are telling parts of our stories. Sometimes it is the merger of past and present and at others it is the moment in time in which we are stuck. Those who experience our art may never hear the stories that we recount while we are creating but they do feel the impetus at the center of each piece. That is what speaks truth between two people. That truth is what comforts and consoles or encourages and extoles. It is for those truths that creative people manifest their work be they writers, painters, poets or sculptors or any other kind of artist.

Recently I went to Marquette. It has been 17 years since I have been there. While it has grown in economy and populace there remains still the essence of the city and landscape that I knew so intimately. There is age and there has been death in some of the landmarks and traditions. It has changed on its surface though not so much as to confuse. To commemorate the trip with my new boyfriend who met my old friends, we made a stop at a bead shop.

I had not expected to find one there since the other specialty craft stores are gone. But it was serendipity. I found purple seed beads unlike any that I have ever seen as well as some metallic green in a shade I can not describe. And for sweetie some unusual blues. How this will translate into jewelery I do not know. But I have taken the beads out to look at them and roll the tubes in the light to watch them glisten. I got a lot of beads for 11.00. In Traverse I would have spent closer to 20.00.