Memories Lost but Found {Art Journaling}

This week’s Documented Life Project:

July Theme -Ephemera
July 18 - Art Challenge: Photographs & Memories
Journal Prompt: "All that I have to remember you"-Jim Croce

None of the elements in this collage are MINE. I have many vintage photos, saved for Heritage Scrapbook Albums I WILL get done someday. I am the photo collector/keeper for my entire family. So, there are any number of photos I could have used for this challenge. But, for some reason, I kept thinking about the trips my husband and I have made, to antique shops, not looking for antique furniture pieces, but for old music, books, and other vintage ephemera. Invariably, there are old photos (snapshots, "studio" portraits), music that has someone's name on it, old postcards, etc. While I love finding such things, to take home and use in my art journaling, I am at the same time SO SAD to think about why those items are in an antique shop....instead of in the hands of loved ones...it is just so sad to me. Will that be MY sheet music one day?

So, this piece is" Lost Memories" and is basically nothing more than a collage of an old piece of sheet music (1928), a couple of vintage postcards, and an old photograph. None of these things were mine. But they belonged to someone. Some time long ago. Memories. Lost.

I posted the above paragraphs, along with the photo of my project, on the Documented Life Project Facebook group page, and have gotten some comments that remind me that, now, these things have been “saved” and have been shared with others. That does make me feel some better, but it still does seem that loved ones should have these things in their possession. Or maybe I should say, someone should have been close enough to this family that they would have WANTED to have these things in their possession.

Memories are important to me, and they are almost always happy, for me. But lost memories—that is sad to me.