Life is a journey of zigs and zags. Staying open to new opportunities that events offer is one of the mainstays of my existence.

In early 2009 my Mom, the youngest and last of her generation, Truus Gerrits Swart, passed away at the age of 87. Among many other things, she passed onto me the legacy of our family history. She had been the oral historian and the keeper of family photos.

I found myself to be the gatekeeper of our family heritage and memories, which I wanted to share with members of my close and extended family.

I began the enormous task of digitally scanning, dating and identifying individuals in hundreds of photos. My family had been prolific photograph and snapshot enthusiasts and some of the photos go back over 100 years ago in the Netherlands, my family’s country of origin.

During this cataloging process I discovered many photos that shouted out to me for more attention before I shared the reproductions with other family members.

Using my skills as a digital Artist, I began to work on some of these:

I cleaned up scratches on the digital scanned images
Took out wrinkles
Color corrected faded images

As time went on I began to play with some of these images:

I took some people out of the photos
Mixed and matched different generations
Took out backgrounds and put people into improbable combinations of locations
I colorized black and white photos
Put different faces onto different bodies.

I had fun!

I always thought that I was not a very unusual person and that if I liked something, others would as well.

So…………………………

That’s how I came to create Reimagined Memories!

Now you can allow us to help you have fun with your Memories too.

...Mary Ahern

P.S. In case you would like to see where I honed my skills in order to offer you these services, please view my bio and resume on my Fine Arts website: www.MaryAhernArtist.com