These House Were Built On Ashes

(ONGOING)

A place where houses seem to be suspended within the vegetation, and hidden paths ensnare you like a dream you can’t escape; the vision in my mind’s eye is one that is more mythical than actual. These images are the residue that remains from my childhood experiences here. They are the result of an endeavor to visualize my memories of growing up in the Deep South. The pictures that emerge are charged with the energy of William Faulkner’s novels that observe the fictional town of Jefferson located in the county of Yoknapatawpha; a creation of the author that was itself a reflection of his experience in the South.  

My vision of Oxford and Lafayette county is a continuance of Jefferson several decades later. I situate my experience of the town within the context of Faulkner’s works and in doing so provide a critical insight into why the work exists as it does, namely as a narrative about the intersection of reality and fiction, a tale populated by people and places that begin to touch on the mythic. The history of the area becomes a crucial component within this work as well, deepening the presence of an old tree or a ramshackle house in the narrative considering the violent stains of this area’s past.

It is no coincidence that Yoknapatawpha should mean “split land”. It is this schism that is center most in These Houses Were Built on Ashes, a rift that points toward a failure to reconcile old beliefs and modern conventions. What is hidden, what is recycled, what is taken and what persists are questions that fascinate me and they are a constant element that recurs within this work. 

 These Houses Were Built on Ashesis a work that addresses the reconciliation between childhood dreams and adult realities. The fantasy of becoming a larger-than-life character gives way to the truth of a mundane but often beautiful existence. The idealized landscape, untouched by human hands contrasts with the repurposed and often fluctuating modular society that man has built and becomes a canvas upon which we paint the details of our lives and our struggles to progress.