36 Things Remembered @ the Box Factory
Artist Statement.
Thirty-six things remembered, embodies the memory of things and events, drawn from
personal experience, observation, dreams and the imagination.
For this show I consider the act of remembering as a creative act. Re-membering, re-assembling things. One’s goal may be to produce an accurate rendition of memory. Here, I take
a deep dive into playful expressions of things remembered.
Memory is mutable. Sometimes, two people see the same event but remember it differently,
other times we embellish a memory like an old fish tale, perhaps the one that got away? Or the
parable where 5 blind people describe an elephant in 5 different ways. Might their memory and
observations benefit from re-assembly? Memory can change over time.
Remembering is not historic revisionism which propagates intentionally false narratives,
otherwise known as lies. Memory can be quite real and true.
The cutouts in this exhibition consist of general and specific remembered things and events.
They may have taken place a day or a decade ago. Some are things one can easily point to and
name: this is a bird, and that is a rabbit. others are derived from intersecting memories, grafted,
altered to create something new. Some of the cutouts are identifiable only in the most general
terms, such as biomorphic or zoomorphic form, no details provided.
In this show I bring divergent things together.
Meaning is constructed within the assembled and individual works, associations are made
within the collection by placement and re-placement, assembly and re-assembly. Re-assembly remakes meaning.
The cutouts are made by hand using old school 20th century woodworking machines and tools, just like my father used as an amateur furniture maker back in the day. These tools have
meaning and memory for me, in and of themselves, they stand out in high contrast to digital
means of production.
The cutouts are made of plywood. An ordinary material, plywood is accessible and well known
to all. In a sense, ordinary materials like plywood are democratic materials. They are found
everywhere: in furniture, floors, walls and cabinetry, ubiquitous things in the built
environments we live in.
Viewers will, of necessity, bring their own perspective and memories to this work. This
statement is only intended to express concepts that are woven into and inform my creative
practice in making these cutouts.
Steven Heyman
September 11, 2025