I Have to Remind Myself

2019

installed using house paint, acrylic paint, watercolor paint, and graphite

In my last semester of college, I read a book entitled I Remember by Joe Brainard. Every sentence started with “I remember. . .” and it inspired me to make lists of experiences I remembered as a result. I jotted down moments with my grandfather, mother, brother, father, friends, and wrote things about people whose voices I can no longer entirely discern anymore. I entitled these words I Have To Remind Myself, based on the last lines my mother said to me when we had a conversation on the phone one evening as I was coming back home from school. While reflecting on places that have made me feel secure, I noticed that my grandfather’s yellow kitchen has been a constant throughout my life and is a room where I have had interactions and discussions with my family that have contributed to my growth as a person. I concluded that for my last open studios project I wanted to recreate my grandfather’s kitchen and paint and draw objects that I have grown up with on the walls of it, and then have handwritten pieces of texts accompanying them—therefore, transforming my studio into an open book for people to immerse themselves in physically and emotionally. Moreover, in order to refer to the memories that I have gathered in my grandfather’s kitchen, I did not fully render every object—cutting board, pans, picture frames, etc.,—because I wanted to make it evident that although these things are still apart of my life, the images of them are not often very stark in my mind.

Alexandra Cabrejos

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