I Could Live There

I Could Live There
Solo Exhibition at The Arts Center, Corvallis, Oregon

September 24 – October 29, 2016

What is the correct way of living in a place? What factors are involved in determining acceptable and outside of acceptable ways of living in a place? How do the differing views form a human community or separate human communities? In trying to engineer a lifestyle I struggle through feelings of isolation and vulnerability in my search for a way of living that honors stewardship and puts me within a network of community support.

expanded text:

A big house is not a fulfilling lifestyle for me, yet what is home without a house? My path has been trying other options, and in doing so exploring attraction to place, notions of home, sensitivity to place, sense of community, and perceptions of safety and security. I push my personal boundaries of risk-taking and explore what might be societal norms or opinions about what is or is not safe or acceptable. I am taking my art out on these same journeys that are part of my lifestyles, out in public, some involving feats of endurance and pushing my physical capabilities.

The house or home is both an object and a metaphor that I find fascinating. The houses that most appeal to me are the ones that might look structurally similar to the way I feel it is like living on this earth at times. These houses are precariously perched, tenuous, shack-like, up on stilts, patched and repaired, structures that might show the resourcefulness that comes out of necessity.

It is this aesthetic that I carry with me when I make art and is part of my process. I prefer a low-tech approach, select materials that are specific to place and I embrace the story inherent in materials. Collecting demolished house boards for me is a way to touch story, place and people. My materials are usually found while biking and exploring, and collected over a long period of time. I find this way of gathering material genuine and rewarding, not restrictive, and part of my exploration of the landscape and connecting to place and community.

Housedress is the piece that launched this current body of work. Housedress explores whom I relate to in my community. Within this piece is my somber acknowledgement of the fact that I relate to and gravitate toward a community that I can never really be a part of. The house structures on Housedress, are similar to shantytowns with shared walls and barely held together roofs. I relate to these structures in part because they exist via a resourcefulness that is not visible in other communities. I feel connected to this community, yet will always be separate. Like the clothing I wear, I am of it, but not truly. Housedress is wearable, part of me for a brief moment. I can be in it and of it and it can provide a temporary sense of shelter and belonging. Within this work is the search for my community and my yearning to belong.

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I move through the world with my sensitivities. It is my hope that through this personal journey exists a thread of the universal, thus connecting me to others.