ArtemisSF, directed by Rebecca Petigrow, is a project space experienced as an apartment. The individual pieces of the installation occupy the room like living things, or the residue of life. Poets are then invited to respond to the work.
It was a new experience for me to initiate a conversation between created objects and a living space. The wooden chair, for example, called out for the handmade fragments, echoing memories of my mother’s, grandmother’s, and aunt’s hand-work. Small, square shapes found their way to the shelves, and took the place of little books. The windows became rectangles for waving light.
The bed brought so much symbolism with it that I had to strip it down, until I was face to face with the bare structure of the box springs and mattress pad. Then I began to build on it with handmade elements cut from pastel and watercolor drawings. Each element is a remainder, carrying the imprint of the location, experience, and time it was being made into a new space.