Cardboardhouse

(photos in Long Beach, Washington)

Title: Cardboardhouse
Place/Time: Artist-In-Residence at The Sou’wester in Seaview, Washington for the month of July 2014

Size: house is 5’5″ tall x 6’10” wide x 7′ long (5″ slope shed roof)
Materials:
house: cardboard, woodglue, housepaint from nearby garage sale free piles
chassis/wheels: bike trailer and walker (mobility aid) altered and combined into one unit pulled by a bicycle

(The walker is a metal tube frame with small wheels typically used as a mobility aid for the elderly or injured. The bicycle was on loan to me for the month via a local community member.)

Details (condensed):
Cardboardhouse was built as a large house, as big as possible yet light enough to be pulled behind a bicycle. Cardboardhouse can be wheeled around on its structure, a combined bike trailer and walker (a metal tubing frame with small wheels used as a mobility aid), and then removed from the wheels and placed in a spot as a shelter. This structure gives me the chance to explore my thoughts about living and what might or might not be deemed as an age-appropriate lifestyle.
Details (expanded):
Wondering if I can build my own house, both literally and metaphorically, has been a thought on my mind for a long time. In my work the last few years I have been using the house as an object and a metaphor, an opportunity to tangibly explore my thoughts about community, lifestyle, what I need to survive and importantly at the moment, which of these things I can accomplish via my resourcefulness versus leaning on my community for support.

My time at The Sou’wester as Artist-In-Residence has given me the chance to answer a question I have been asking myself since 2011, “Can I build a house in which I can pull behind my bicycle?” At The Sou’wester I felt relatively at ease to explore this silly question, one that makes me laugh at its ridiculousness and a bit apprehensive about making due to the fact that after completion I knew this piece needed to be wheeled out into the public realm in some fashion, by sorta-shy me, the driver of this strange, too-big-to-ignore, bicycle-pulled Cardboardhouse. This apprehension points in part to the concept behind this work, my wish to live a lifestyle that suits the oddity of me, yet still blend in enough to be comfortable and safe without feeling the need to explain and defend my choices.

The technical problems of constructing this work felt in tandem with issues I grapple with regarding how to live. Is this house possible to engineer? How big can I make this house and still be able to move it around all by myself? Can I source all the materials for this house myself in a way that honors this new place I am living? This Cardboardhouse will stand out as an oddity but, can I make it blend in enough with the other buildings around me to be safe and fit in?

Upon landing within the Sou’wester community I immediately sensed that The Sou’wester would be a graceful space in which I could comfortably explore this work and indeed it was. The Sou’wester is full of diverse travelers and lots of homes on wheels. I found a forum for my ideas about lifestyle and my Cardboardhouse seemed to fit right in with the other houses on wheels, the vintage travel trailers and vehicles in the RV park.

Thank you to The Sou’wester for supporting me!