909 Beaverhead Road
This project, titled after my grandparent’s house at 909 Beaverhead Road, began when my mom found my grandfather, Poppy’s, architectural drawings for the 1990 addition. After
spending some time with the drawings, I found myself at a loss for how to utilize them in my practice. So, I decided to take a familiar step, and made copies after the partial
elevations and floor plans. Through this process, I began to understand Poppy’s hand and how it presented itself in this rigid architectural vocabulary.However, unlikewith other
copies I had made, I was connecting with someone I knew, but in a very different capacity. Our relationship began to shift from that of grandparent and grandchild,
to something more closely resembling collaborating artists, contemporaries freed from the constraints of an age gap and a consuming disease, dementia.
spending some time with the drawings, I found myself at a loss for how to utilize them in my practice. So, I decided to take a familiar step, and made copies after the partial
elevations and floor plans. Through this process, I began to understand Poppy’s hand and how it presented itself in this rigid architectural vocabulary.However, unlikewith other
copies I had made, I was connecting with someone I knew, but in a very different capacity. Our relationship began to shift from that of grandparent and grandchild,
to something more closely resembling collaborating artists, contemporaries freed from the constraints of an age gap and a consuming disease, dementia.
Elevation
etching, engraving & drypoint
Floor Plans
etching, engraving & drypointSite Map - Colophon
etching, engraving & drypoint
909 existed simultaneously as Gram and Poppy’s house, my mom’s childhood home, and a space of immeasurable comfort among other things. 909 Beaverhead Road relies largely on my memory of this multifaceted space that is no longer a part of my family’s life. However, for much of what I have worked on thus far, I have relied on a specific type of remembering, one that is rather devoid of concrete artifacts, objects that act as facilitators of remembering. In creating the intaglio prints, the only concrete artifacts I utilized were Poppy’s drawings. However, as they only show the northwest portion of the house, I had to rely on my memories along with the spacial information I could gather from the drawings to construct four full elevations and two full floor plans. All the time, I was working within the architectural vocabulary I had learned through copying Poppy’s drawings. A vocabulary that is as specific as it is ambiguous. Each line highlights what is absent as much as that which is present.
In the accompanying text, I tried to do much of the same thing. As I walk through the house in my mind I pay close attention to specific details, but deliberately question myself as an authoritative voice. My incomplete and sometimes incoherent memories highlight the way in which remembered images stand stoically uncertain in my mind. While you can come with me on this walk around 909, see the caned chairs and the porch furniture, you are always free to leave, retreat into the disparate personal spaces of your own mind rather than simply inhabiting mine.
In the accompanying text, I tried to do much of the same thing. As I walk through the house in my mind I pay close attention to specific details, but deliberately question myself as an authoritative voice. My incomplete and sometimes incoherent memories highlight the way in which remembered images stand stoically uncertain in my mind. While you can come with me on this walk around 909, see the caned chairs and the porch furniture, you are always free to leave, retreat into the disparate personal spaces of your own mind rather than simply inhabiting mine.
909 Beaverhead Road: Objects, Furniture & Other Physical Things
excerpts from a typewritten manuscript
This whole project revolves around a suitcase that acts as a housing for this expanding body of work comprising both unique objects and objects that exist in multiples. The suitcase is an intensely intimate object that is now somewhat self generating as it is the site of expansion through its function as a writing desk. When open, this suitcase which traveled alongside Poppy further transforms into a space for remembering an enduring source of comfort, 909, that I can no longer physically access. However, this space simultaneously exists as a site for exploring the evolution of my memories as I myself age, most immediately through my necessary next step of confronting and researching the history of the land on which my idyllic white childhood was constructed.
2021 Printmaking Senior Thesis Exhibition
May 2021
Left to Right: A.G.K., Excerpts from 909 Beaverhead Road, Objects, Furniture & Other Physical Things, and 909 Beaverhead Road
A.G.K. - Long form video document and suitcase with maple, hand caning, leather, brass buckles, eucalyptus essential oil, 909 Beaverhead Road in a clamshell box with handmade manila folders, 909 Beaverhead Road: Objects, Furniture & Other Physical Things in a box.
Close up of 909 Beaverhead Road installed at Woods-Gerry Gallery
After the Willow Fell - Photopolymer and chiné colle on paper