My interest in memorial art emerged gradually during my initial computer art course some time before 9/11/01 when I created a digital photographic collage of my parents as a segment of a class project. Another of my deceased husband followed as a memorial image of a significant portion of his life. Friends hearing that I wanted to create similar images for parents who had lost children volunteered to be my clients for further class projects. With their help, I created a process of interviews, image creation, client review and critique of initial choices; revision based on these comments, then final printing, delivery, and a six-month follow-up interview to discuss the experience.

I meet with those wishing a memorial art image about a significant person, event or period in their lives to tape record an interview to discuss their story and its impact on their lives. They share visual material, usually photographs, sometimes poetry, dreams, and object. I take digital photographs of them in a setting of their choice. Then I create three or four options which we review together to critique for revision. The final image is selected, printed and delivered. We talk again about six months later to review the experience and its impact.

While some observers have responded to the participant process of creating memorial art by labeling it therapy, that has never been the object or primary intention of my memorial art. It is part of being human to mark physically & symbolically significant people and events. My project participants are willing to review critical events in their lives to create art that reflected their personal experience. Talking with them helps me form a photographic collage, an ‘X’ that marked their significant spot; a visible object based on memories and photographs of someone they loved and lost, often to early death. My work has expanded now to embrace loss in its many forms, whether it is personal health, the end of an important period, disbanding of a significant group. We celebrate in art that we have been part of life that has had meaning and love.