Get Creative at Home: Discover Memories in a Nostalgic Chest of Drawers
Where do we keep our memories? Explore Tejo Remy’s special drawers and reflect on memories through drawing and writing.
By Melissa Katzin, Manager of Family Programs, and Meg Williams, Coordinator of School and Teacher Services, High Museum of Art
Tejo Remy is a contemporary designer and artist, creating decorative art objects including furniture, wallpaper, and works such as You Can’t Lay Down Your Memory Chest of Drawers.
Decorative art explores the merging of function and aesthetics through form, material, process, place, and intent; sometimes, decorative artworks are meant to be used, other times they are for display only, and often, they can be for both.
You can explore highlights from the High Museum’s collection of decorative arts online.
Tejo Remy created multiple versions of You Can’t Lay Down Your Memory Chest of Drawers at different museums, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London.
For each of the works, Remy used drawers that people donated from the areas surrounding the museums. For the work at the High, the Museum sent out a statewide call for drawers; Remy then came to the Museum to piece together twenty of the most compelling drawers that were submitted. Watch the artist assemble the chest in the Robinson Atrium at the High Museum of Art.
Each drawer holds memories from the drawers’ original owners.
Want to read about the memories each of these drawers hold, written by their original owners? Check out our resource here.
Look closely at You Can’t Lay Down Your Memory Chest of Drawers. What do the drawers have in common? How are they different?
Get Creative at Home
Visual artists are often inspired by stories and memories. In this artwork, Tejo Remy gathers stories and memories in the form of drawers. With a piece of paper and a pencil, draw your own set of drawers.
Is there a drawer or box that holds a special story or memory for you? It could be from your home, your school, a library, a beloved caregiver or friend’s home — it could even be imaginary! Your drawers can be different sizes and shapes! What kinds of handles will you put on your drawers? Consider how they stack and balance on top of one another.
Choose one of the special drawers you drew, and answer the following questions:
· Who uses that drawer or box?
· Where is the drawer or box from?
· What does the drawer or box look like?
· What is inside the drawer or box?
· When you think of the drawer or box, what textures, smells, or sounds come to mind?
· Why is the drawer or box special to you?
Share your creations on instagram and tag #HighMuseumatHome.
Are you currently teaching or homeschooling? Scroll for expanded activity prompts and corresponding Georgia Standards of Excellence.
Teacher Resources: English Language Arts Extension
Elementary
Just like visual artists, writers are inspired by stories and memories, too! Create a story about your special drawer or box using words and pictures. Use your answers above to help start the story. Add more details to describe the people, places, and things in your story. What colors and shapes can you see? What sounds can you hear? What textures can you feel? What scents can you smell?
For a challenge, use as many adjectives as you can to describe the characters, the setting, and the drawer or box. Make sure your story has a beginning, middle, and end.
Relevant Georgia Standards of Excellence:
ELAGSEKSL4 Describe familiar people, places, things, and events and, with prompting and support, provide additional detail.
ELAGSE1SL5 Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
ELAGSE2W3 Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.
ELAGSE4RL3 Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions).
Middle and High School
Visual art and pieces of writing can often be analyzed for themes or central ideas. What do you think the theme(s) of Tejo Remy’s artwork might be? Write your idea(s) in a word, phrase, or short sentence. If you were to write a story inspired by your special drawer or box, what would your theme(s) be?
Artists and writers also use symbols to communicate ideas to their audience. Think again about your special drawer or box. Could it function as a symbol? What might the drawer or box symbolize? Maybe certain features of your drawer or box such as the color, shape, style, or size could hold symbolic meaning. Does it have a lock? Is it broken? If nothing comes to mind, you can invent a memory or drawer for your narrative.
Compose a short story about your special drawer or box; think about your theme(s) and what symbols you might incorporate.
Draw an illustration of the drawer or box that visualizes one of the themes or symbols from your story.
For a challenge, turn your short story into a poem, song, graphic novel, or other medium you enjoy.
Relevant Georgia Standards of Excellence:
ELAGSE6–12W3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.
ELAGSE9–10RL2 Determine a theme or central idea of text and closely analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
