A Place For A Memory

How do you design a place for a memory? Do you take it literally and use pictures and actual memorabilia; or do you make something more symbolic and abstract? It's much more potent in my mind to design something with textures, colors, smells, and other qualities that remind you of the memory rather than using a literal approach. For this project we had to write a narrative and make a place for our memory. I like to remember the good times and one of my favorite memories is picking raspberries with my sister. Here is the narrative, I hope you enjoy!

Early in the morning she bolted out the door grasping her younger sister’s hand. They were headed for Stan and Margaret’s raspberry bushes. The bushes were in the far corner of their neighbor’s yard, the closest corner to the little girls’ house. All they had to do was sneak through the crack in the fence and slip behind the bushes where no one could see them. The younger one was five and her dark brown hair was cut in a bowl cut like most children her age. The older sister was twice her age and her long brown hair reached down to her waist and flew past the younger one’s head as they ran towards fence.
First the sisters peeked through the fence, checking to see if anyone was in the backyard, then with their hearts racing they sprung through the tiny opening in the fence and jumped behind the raspberry bushes. They scanned the raspberries and tried to find the plumpest, juiciest, and best looking ones. Their mouths and chins soon turned red and the youngest one’s white shirt had red stains at the top. Then the girls heard across the yard, “Cathy?...Molly?” It was their mother calling them. They quickly jumped up and stuffed as many raspberries in their mouth as they could as they tried to make it to the other side of the fence before their mother could find them. Their mother knew exactly where they were; it was hard to hide the evidence on their guilty chins and shirts. She just smiled and told them that Stan and Margaret had invited them to tea that afternoon and that they should probably get changed.
The youngest took a sip of her tea and then tried adding more sugar and milk, a lot more sugar. Her legs were dangling at least a foot away from the floor as she kicked them back and forth, back and forth. The older one sat slouched, stirring her tea over and over. They both glanced at each other and smiled, both thinking of the raspberry bushes and their little secret.


Below are three different iterations of the project. I have two pictures of my first two iterations at the very bottom and the rest are photos of my final. My idea for this project was to use textures, colors, and smells that reminded me of the memory. The textures of the leaves, raspberries, and dirt from the garden were a large part of my memory. The lush reds and greens of the raspberry bushes and the smell of the tea stuck out in my mind as well. My first iteration was a simple box covered in red paper and lined with real leaves. The paper seemed bland to me and didn't remind me of my memory at all. The leaves, however, really spoke to me and that's where my second iteration came in. I did the entire box in leaves for my second iteration and changed the lid slightly. Although my memory is "secretive" I felt that the lids on either box were not working. Also, the leaves were very difficult to glue onto the box made of chipboard (a material similar to mat board but significantly cheaper). I tried mod podge (a simple white glue) and then hot glue. Neither did the trick. For my final box I used rubber cement to glue the leaves. This worked wonders but smelled quite pungent. I still wanted my box to smell like tea. I mixed a very small amount of Mod Podge, red paint, and earl gray tea to make the textured outside of the box. I was really pleased with the way it turned out. The smell may not be what I had planned on exactly but the textures really work well together. Overall this is one of my favorite projects so far!

(FYI: The scroll with a leather tie is my narrative)

Final Memory Box

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First Iterations

My 'Parti'