I know that when I travel with a camera I tend to rely on it to collect visual memories.
Without a camera, I look harder. I sketch landscapes, I collect small souvenirs, I do studies in paint and I desperately scribble notes in an effort to lock into my brain details that I suspect that I’ll want to revisit later.
Physical records, even when they are small and done in difficult circumstances seem to talk aloud to me when I stumble across them later in the studio. “Remember that…” “Here’s an idea…” “Why didn’t you…”? That’s when I start to prepare canvases.