art Home Is The Most Important Place In The World |
||
In Memoriam Who trusted God was love indeed Take from Canto 56 of the poem In Memoriam
Nicki in process of burning over 270 candles, one representing each person, for the installation currently on view at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle. The 270 bronze and brass memorial tags seen here honor homeless people who died by violence or without shelter on the streets of Seattle since the year 2000. Nicki is still in the process of hand-making each tag. These tags hang from the ceiling of the house made of mattresses seen below. Each tag will eventually be placed at the death site of the individual for whom it stands. |
 |
|
| This is what you see when you are inside the house and looking up at the ceiling. If you look closely at this photograph, you can see some of the memorial tags. |  |
|
| The imagery on the tags is often an abstract representation of the way the person died. Some examples include being set on fire and beaten, suicide, hypothermia or "unknown" or "natural" causes (though under the age of 50.) |  |
|
The overall installation view of the work in the Henry. The case to the right and frame on the wall hold historical documents on loan from UW Special Collections. These documents are meant to support the piece, but are not part of it. When you look inside the case, you see, among other things, an 8 x 10 black and white photograph of Seattle's Hooverville encampment taken during The Great Depression. The frame holds a current flyer handed out at vigils by a local group of currently and formerly homeless women whom I have been consulting on this project. They are called The Women In Black. |
 |
|
Work in progress in the studio. This is how I would have lit the interior of the piece if live flame were allowed in the gallery. The position of the mattresses in the photo is not quite like the layout of the final piece. |
 |
|