Clearing memories

WordPress keeps telling me my phone is full. I know! I keep trying to delete photos but it’s almost impossible. There are thousands of them. There’s lots of other things, I am not sure of half of what’s on here….

So I think I will have to buy more memory. Its funny how real memories are subsumed into a digital memory. If you don’t have a photo of it, it didn’t happen? Case in point, the recent death and funeral of the Queen. People have always recorded their lives throughout the ages, for example look at cave paintings. Then art throughout the ages, paintings for people who could pay, or sketches by people who had the means or ability to draw or paint. Then deguerreotypes (not sure of the spelling) became popular, painted portraits turned into slow motion photos that took time to take and heads had to be clamped in place to get a clear image. Box brownies, single lens reflex, eventually digital cameras, then phones which took a few photos. Now, the mobile phone is a hand held computer… But it still gets full.

The human mind can hold more information, but it’s not stored in a logical order. Links from the past suddenly reach out and grab your attention. Clearing a human brain of memory is not a good thing, and unless it happens through illness, age or injury, causing degradation of the brain structure, it is to be hoped that people can build memories (good or bad?), not lose them.

Drawing of a replica.

Sketch of a replica of Chauvet cave painting in France.

Cave painting is amazing. The strength of the lines, the energy. The real feeling of life on the cave walls. A cave replica has been created in France of Chauvet cave. This is to protect the original which has been closed to the public. Human breath can create condensation and will allow mould to grow which damages the ancient pigments. This was Sundays prompt for #bandofsketchers. Just catching up.

Mark making

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This is a digital drawing that I did of a cave painting, ancient and modern in one picture.

The urge to make marks and create images seems to have been with humans since the stone age. I do wonder if Neanderthals were artists too? Perhaps someone out there knows if they were. Art seems to be intrinsic to humans , a way of visualising the external environment. Whether it was animals they hunted, or eventually farmed, they created images of them that are beautifully depicted.

As the millennia moved forward art continued, but also turned into pictographs, such as hieroglyphs, or other ancient languages. The words I am writing now have there roots in ancient art.

Of course painting continued, and people also created sculpture and invented ink and printing. We are the mark making hominids. Without art and language we would not have science, mathematics, map making, books. Art evolved into design, photography, architecture. Art and culture,  I wonder if music emerged at the same time as art. Possibly earlier as spoken language was probably used in parts of the ape family before home sapiens appeared. But to point at a cave painting and use a word for cattle, or hunt, or flock. Thats interesting …I’m sure there is a lot more information out there.

Whatever happened I feel there must be an “art” or “creativity” gene. I know I cannot do without mark making.