For the last few weeks, I have been working on my next show at Fayetteville Underground. It will be quite different from We’ve Been Holding This Moment for You, my May 2010 solo debut at the Underground. The current project centers on semi-abstract miniature houses. They have kept me busy since February, and I think I have assembled a collection of images in the past five months that will let the concept speak for itself. Not to give too much away at this point (the show opens in October), but: I constructed about twenty tiny buildings from different types of paper, cardboard, and plastic. Cut from one sheet and shaped to resemble southern vernacular structures, the miniatures are as minimalist as I was able to make them. The idea is to have them embody the essence of “house” (in the western sense, although I am curious to see what the limitations are). I place the houses in environments and situations where they seem to belong; then I take photographs of them that reveal incongruities, tensions, and mysteries to the careful viewer.

Initially, I put them outside all over downtown Fayetteville, mostly in locations that evoke a sense of history and change. The next set of images was more abstract; and most recently, I have been working on connecting the houses with other human-made objects.

I’m on a working vacation this week. I’m only about a 45-minute drive from home, but I’m staying in a remote area with many opportunities to explore exterior and interior spaces. Here are a few examples, one or two of which may turn up as part of my show:

Resettled at the Bluff

The bluff overhang makes for interesting light effects on this river bank.

Triangulations

I like the sparse, jagged rock layers on this river bluff. Here, everything came together in triangles.

Rock Village

My first attempt at placing all the houses together.

Houses in Abandoned Suitcase

This photo was inspired by working with The Artist’s Laboratory Theatre (see post below).