Cecil Castellucci’s story caught my attention because it was about memory and the brain. Over time, our memories come to define us. If we could change them by altering brain chemistry, we might change some fundamental aspect of who we are. Remembering and forgetting might have profound consequences, as they do in the story.

Dendrites, named after the Greek word for tree, are branched structures that connect neurons in the brain, building knowledge and memories. Many images came to mind as I read the story, but I kept returning to the shapes of dendrites. The resulting image is a dark forest of neurons in which the self is lost, trying to stay warm by burning bits of memory. In solipsistic fashion, the mind becomes the entire landscape, including the sky.

The day after I chose The Long And Short Of Long Term Memory, I heard a five-minute segment on National Public Radio about the scientist and research that apparently inspired the story. There may soon be ways to pinpoint and erase unwanted memories. What would you keep? What would you burn to stay warm?

Ingrid Kallick

I tried to make this bracelet festive, to focus on the party scene at the climax of the story rather than Dunbar’s anxieties. I tried to show the award ceremony as it would seem to others in the story: oh, isn’t it all pretty? Isn’t it fancy? Aren’t we grand? The beads I chose for their color — champagne, of course — and the way their facets reflect light so well, making the strands quite shiny. The locket comes to you empty, to stand for Dunbar at the moment he’d wanted so long. It is also for the buyer, a place to hold their own memories.

Sarah B. Evans

I am a scientist and an artist. Up to recently my time has been 75 % science, 25% art. It is now evolving toward more art, less science. In the coming years it will be 100% art.
I favor water media (watercolor and acrylic). Bookbinding is a hobby.

The story by Cecil Castellucci is about memories; the ones you want to keep and the ones you would like to forget. I see the book as a place to keep the memories. The abstract painting on the fly leaves is my impression of a neural network. The painting was cut to make the front and back fly leaves and there is no possibility of reconnecting the parts. It represents lost memories. The blank pages are for the memories that one wants to keep. When the book is closed the neural network on the clasp is reconnected keeping the memory safe.

Lise Bernier

As a student surrounded by people like Heidi everyday, she felt to me like a very real character who really deserved to be canonized in beads. The braided cord I used was for her particular hairstyle, which added quirk to her character and, I think, to the choker. The more colorful glass beads dotting the piece are for her memories, the things she so valued and that ultimately undid her: they’re colorful, vivid, and the faceted, chunky shapes of the glass were something I like here as not only a contrast to the darkness of the necklace, but to represent bits, fragments, of memory. The silver chain is for pretty, and in places, to represent Heidi’s memories tied to her mind, unable to forget anything. And the bit of frayed cord in the center is to represent the surgery, the severing of her hippocampus.

Sarah B. Evans

The title and first paragraph of Cecil’s story immediately caught my attention. As my own short term memory starts playing tricks, I find myself thinking about memory more than ever. What do we choose to remember, and what forget…or try to forget. Should we forget? Where does scientific understanding help, and when is it woefully inadequate. I was fascinated as my mother suffered from dementia and yet held on to strong long term memories that carried her forward. I have taken words and images from Cecil’s story and incorporated them into this book…burning the edges of the words and the scientific slide images..reflecting questions of what is burned into our memory and what seems to disappear and fly away as ash.

Cecil’s story moves back and forth challenging the reader with intriguing turns, all the while propelling forward. This book is intricate and changeable. It is meant to be turned, stretched, looked at from different angles, read different ways, placed in its pouch, and brought out again on a different day. Hopefully it will encourage contemplation as Cecil’s story does. Encouraging questions, play, and looking at things from different angles is a role I take seriously as an artist. I savor dancing in the regions between most traditional art forms. It was a joy to dance in those worlds with Cecil’s story.

Wendy Ellertson