“Tales Lost to Time” 12 x 36” Oil on Canvas

A photo: a blast from the past, just came out from my cousin, on Facebook, and took us all back to “the day”… Here, my cousins, my brother and my aunt and I are all at my grandparent’s home, posing together.  (We are in Grandma’s corner: where her chair sat)  We are of different ages, yet share many common bonds.   Each of us has a truth and a story at the time the photo was taken… a shared experience, yet totally different experiences non-the-less.  As photos from my youth are fading away, it reminds me of the fact that these memories… these stories… these personal truths… will also be largely lost to time.

I am inspired by mysterious rock carvings; their meaning lost to time.  Although the imagery is clear, the meaning is not.  What is left for the modern viewer is to not just view these symbols, but to decipher them by feeling them with their heart.  Intuitively, perhaps the meaning is still translatable to mankind.  “I LIVED, I WAS HERE”  Tales told through images, and largely conveyed narrativly, the story is lost to time, but the memory of the human having lived is still present.

A feathered headdress such as this, also tells a story.  Each feather represents a deed or event.  Now encased in a museum, the piece still communicates a message and preserves a culture, but sadly, the rich tales that once accompanied the artifact are now lost to time.