If you were taking a walking tour of the works that I installed at Hermitage Museum and Gardens, the next piece you would encounter, after The Pod (which I will return to, and describe at the end of the outdoor installations), and then "Kong Tower", (which I described in the last post) would be a hanging lantern of sorts, which I call "The House That Jack Built".
The inspiration for this piece came from a birdhouse that I found on one of my early scavenging runs in Norfolk and Ocean View, in a pile of detritus, that local victims of Hurricane Irene had amassed into a large pile, which the city had kindly offered to collect and dispose of.
(I have already discribed this piece alittle in my recent blog post about collecting supplies for Reclamation).
But I would like to talk about my ambitions for this piece, and what it became.
As I mentioned in that post, I was captivated by this small bird house. There was something so vulnerable, yet spunky about it.
I imagined it, hanging from someones porch by its tough steel cord, tilting and twirling in 75 mile/hr winds. Did it finally fly away, or did its owner just decide to let it go? I will never know.
But somehow, to me, it seemed an emblem of Hermitage.
I pictured it, out by that mystical water,
In the entryway to the Sloanes' house, there is an inscription, carved into a wooden beam.
It reads "This is the house that Jack built"
It is an ode, by Mr. Sloane, to the endless work project of his wife, Mrs. Sloane (nicknamed Jack).
This piece is my ode, to the funky, gypsy soul of Mrs. Sloane.
The inspiration for this piece came from a birdhouse that I found on one of my early scavenging runs in Norfolk and Ocean View, in a pile of detritus, that local victims of Hurricane Irene had amassed into a large pile, which the city had kindly offered to collect and dispose of.
(I have already discribed this piece alittle in my recent blog post about collecting supplies for Reclamation).
But I would like to talk about my ambitions for this piece, and what it became.
As I mentioned in that post, I was captivated by this small bird house. There was something so vulnerable, yet spunky about it.
I imagined it, hanging from someones porch by its tough steel cord, tilting and twirling in 75 mile/hr winds. Did it finally fly away, or did its owner just decide to let it go? I will never know.
But somehow, to me, it seemed an emblem of Hermitage.
I pictured it, out by that mystical water,
almost sort of a spector.
In the entryway to the Sloanes' house, there is an inscription, carved into a wooden beam.
It reads "This is the house that Jack built"
It is an ode, by Mr. Sloane, to the endless work project of his wife, Mrs. Sloane (nicknamed Jack).
This piece is my ode, to the funky, gypsy soul of Mrs. Sloane.
