22 yellow dollhouses on round wooden stakes, 3 cm in diameter and placed 1 to 2 meters high. Placement can be determined by amount of space available forming a tight group or a longer line.
22 is the number of moves undertaken so far in my life and the piece was conceived by the contemplation of looking for yet another one. What makes a house a home? Themes of migration, loss, nostalgia, permanence and transience run through my recent large installations including What We Didn’t Leave Behind, 2015. Each bright yellow house has some small, handwritten blue text inspired, in part, by the works of Joseph Cornell and using text from A Convergence of Birds (fiction by various writers based on his artworks) and my own remembered dreams of houses and birds.
Viewers are asked to lie down in a bathtub full of large, smooth rocks and rest their heads on a pillow emanating the sound of overlapping voices inviting them to come into the water. Most viewers describe it as a surprisingly comfortable and relaxing experience that can transport them back in time or to a deeply familiar and all-encompassing place.