Stories in the Details: Grandma's House

While at my grandmother's house, I collected more images from her backyard. As with my mom's yard I focused on details that tell a story of place and time. However, unlike mom's house, I have a long history and deep connection to this place. There, each detail felt like a window into my parent's personalities and everyday life. Here, each detail also reveals something about my grandmother's lifestyle, but it is also steeped in memory, loss, personal history, and change. 

More Stories in the Details from Mom's House

Whether tending their garden, planting and maintaining their planting beds, or just taking their morning coffee on the deck, both of my parents spend a lot of time outdoors. Their yard is almost like a portrait of their lives. In it, one can discern their love of nature, evidence of a strong work ethic, a predilection for spending time together, and a fondness for keeping aquariums and collecting angels, among other things. One can also find mysteries and curiosities in the same place. This leads me to consider the significance of these details. They are fragments. Each with its own story that when assembled together tells an entirely different one. A story of people, place, home and the reciprocal relationship between woman/man and nature.

Mapping out the Semester - August

Grandma in her backyard (c. late '80s)

While in Georgia...

• Continue daily writing
• I haven't been drawing as much as I had originally intended so I plan to begin this exercise in the next week
• Continue adding daily entries into Commonplace/reflectionnaire book
• Complete recording sounds/narration/interviews in Georgia
• Complete 3 photograph series: hand portraits, homesteads, Harris County photo essay
• Compile archived/scanned photographs: family portraits, family and place
• Collect and scan archival documents
• census records
• birth/death/marriage certificates
• any documentation of family in Harris County
• Create at least 2 collages per week 

Once back home in Rhode Island...

• Start researching video/audio techniques
• Make clay sketches for gestural sculptures/consider mold-making
• Make 4 shell pieces
• Make 2 papier-mache sculptures
• Pulp and dye 1 batch of paper for casting per week
• Cast 1 set of collard leaves per week

Mapping out the Semester - July

The beginning of Grandma's backyard

I love lists and I'm very excited about going back to Georgia this summer to visit family and friends. This trip will also grant me the opportunity to conduct some research and start projects that have been on my mind since last fall. Here is a general outline of what I want to accomplish over the next few weeks.

• Create a studio plan for the semester
• Get into the habit of writing every day
• Start Commonplace/reflectionnaire book (add to it daily)
• Find source for new library cards
• Create at least 2 collages per week
• Make a list of sounds to record while in GA
• start recording
• Decide which plants to make molds of while in GA
• make molds
• Sketch ideas for 3d collard work
• Collect and scan archival images of my grandmother's backyard
• Begin new photo series
• establishing views and details of landscapes
• grandma's backyard
• mom's backyard
• ancestral home in Harris County
• hands of the women in my family at work and at rest
• landscape/self portraits