Self Portraits in Thought

During the period in which I did not have access to a print studio, I experimented with drawings over photographs.  This series layers a line drawing, most often of myself deep in thought, which was based on a photograph of my walking through the house after I first inherited it, when I felt overwhelmed with the task ahead and unsure of what to do (Photograph by Laura August).  I examine the house from multiple angles, inside and outside. These works address my efforts to understand my heritage and the wider heritage of the house from the place of unknowing. The exhibit will include a small selection of them.

Pondering

I wonder what life was like in this house when it was young. Who was inside? Who was outside? How did they interact? How did they love? How did they play?

The Root Cellar

I am looking from the back porch out to the root cellar. At some point a room with galvanized siding was built over the antebellum root cellar that had been dug in the earth. Klein’s caretaker, John Mallory, a retired railroad man, lived in it in the 50s. Jim Crow and the plantation meet in this structure as the two periods of time are merged. John Mallory’s dwelling was one room, without adequate ventilation, over a damp cellar. This roof over his head was given in exchange for his labor.

The Stain

Here I contemplate deteriorated and peeling wallpaper in the house that had been put up in the ‘50s. Composed of repeating images of the antebellum South, it moves beyond decoration, wooing the viewer back to a romantic fantasy that hid so much pain.