Trace III

The window panes transform into book spreads. Every touch, every written word leaves a mark.

…

I wipe the windows in the apse of a former monastery with a light blue microfiber cloth I found in the studio when I moved in. Between the panes there is an insect cemetery preserved in dust. Woven into the cloth: a string of cobwebs and once-living skeletons. Ladybugs (Coccinellidae), large house spiders (Eratigena duellica), long-legged cellar spiders (Pholcus phalangioides), miniature red mites (Bryobia praetiosa), and others harder to identify – their shells crunch softly in the folds of the fabric. It seems these windows haven’t been cleaned in quite some time. Then again, perhaps they’ve been quietly curating their own little museum of time.

I turn the old, stubborn handles, gently pulling tangled webs like delicate folds of fabric. I brush away the stubborn pollen from the glass. Each time I open a window, it feels as if pages from forgotten books unfold in my mind. The window panes begin to resemble book spreads, subtly echoing links to graphic arts and artist’s books.

Dipping a brush into milky emulsion, I coat the polished glass – this time leaving behind a soft mist where old, forgotten marks linger, quietly yearning to be remembered. At first, the windows remain clear. Gradually, a gentle haze settles in. On this surface, I write a chain of memories about a village in Latvia where my mother used to spend her summers – archiving fragments and wondering how far memory can truly reach.

The dense marks on the shutters resemble hurried notes in a memoir – a desire to capture fleeting thoughts. These misty impressions spread like worn book pages or fogged car windows, merging the landscape outside with the inner world of reflection.

…

In rewriting old memories, I not only archive personal experience but also search for ways to give fragile, ephemeral moments a visual form – a form shaped by the desire to remember, much like the universal marks found in diaries, notes, and memoirs. A quiet attempt to capture the continuous flow of life.