Current Gallery: dreamhouse ( piece)
I grew up as a military brat in the 1960s and 70s, moving from house to house, state to state, until, by the age of fourteen I had attended over 20 schools, and lived in almost as many houses. I formed a fascination with the vast and changing cultural landscape, often viewed from the backseat of a car on the way across the United States. Often, after six months, or, sometimes as much as a year later, we would pack up the house and move again, starting from scratch. Dream House is a re-creation of those moments I experienced on the threshold of change: our house as it looked when we arrived in a new place: empty of objects but full of possibility, and the house as it looked just as we were about to leave: what happened in between the arriving and the leaving and how did our presence change the space? I collected several vintage doll houses; the painted-on landscaping and furniture fascinated me as a child and still do. I began by creating “housing developments” like those in which we often lived, but quickly found that I was more drawn to the details of the houses themselves, and how the false landscaping, for example, interacted with the live flora of the settings in which I placed the houses. I am intrigued with photography's ability to question reality; that, as with the nature of memory, the houses play tricks on our perception of what is and is not real.
I grew up as a military brat in the 1960s and 70s, moving from house to house, state to state, until, by the age of fourteen I had attended over 20 schools, and lived in almost as many houses. I formed a fascination with the vast and changing cultural landscape, often viewed from the backseat of a car on the way across the United States. Often, after six months, or, sometimes as much as a year later, we would pack up the house and move again, starting from scratch. Dream House is a re-creation of those moments I experienced on the threshold of change: our house as it looked when we arrived in a new place: empty of objects but full of possibility, and the house as it looked just as we were about to leave: what happened in between the arriving and the leaving and how did our presence change the space? I collected several vintage doll houses; the painted-on landscaping and furniture fascinated me as a child and still do. I began by creating “housing developments” like those in which we often lived, but quickly found that I was more drawn to the details of the houses themselves, and how the false landscaping, for example, interacted with the live flora of the settings in which I placed the houses. I am intrigued with photography's ability to question reality; that, as with the nature of memory, the houses play tricks on our perception of what is and is not real.