Artist Statement

Beneath the Dust

      I have always been drawn to old things, to old places. The sense of history, of lives lived before mine, is very strong, almost tangible to me at times. I feel as if I could only look long enough, or pass through the dim layer of dust which covers an object, I might be able to see what it once was, what it once meant to someone, what part it played in that person's life. I feel a very strong connection to people I have never known, and there are times it seems if I had only turned my head a little quicker, I could have caught a glimpse of someone quite like myself from the corner of my eye...
      In this project, I hope to facilitate interactions between the viewer and the history of an environment, revealing the ways people's lives interrelate through time. Common themes and elements in the stories, connections between both the characters and hopefully the viewer, will show that there are core commonalities between everyone, despite differences in time and cultural groups. Another element of the project is describing the history in everyday places and objects, and showing that though not in always a visible manner, everyone leaves behind some trace of their self in the places they have been.
      The piece itself is a Flash-based website, showing the interior of room, wherein the viewer is able to click on certain objects or locations. A click on those areas, denoted by a whispering sound, will bring up one of a number of short stories. The room, which is hand-drawn in charcoal, is empty of any person but the viewer, containing a few old pieces of furniture, the walls worn with age and much use. The stories will appear to be handwritten on sheets of paper, the age of the paper and the style of the hand dependent on the setting and main character of the story. Each story is set entirely within the very room the viewer stands in, though at different points in the room's history, which spans about a hundred and fifty years. Fading gently around the corners of the room are soft sounds, of voices not quite heard, faint scraps of melody from unseen instruments, and the sound of air breathed once breathed by those long-gone.
      The contents of the room are partly products of my imagination, and partly borrowed from things and places I have known. When I first moved from one town to another as a child, it never quite sunk in that I was leaving a place until I stood in my empty bedroom, with all of the things which had made it my home taken away - it was then that I felt a terribly forlorn sorrow, an overwhelming sense of loss at all that the room would no longer be. The rocking chair in the room is based on one that has been in my family for a generation or two, the locket which appears in one story was derived from a few that I have been given by each of my grandmothers, and I own a number of old books, which provide reference for the books as well as the sheets of old paper. The contents of the stories have been drawn from countless influences, books I have read, personal experiences, things I have found on the Internet that intrigued me, strong emotions I felt on a particular day, or simply an idea that popped into my head as a possibly backstory for an object I had drawn into the room. A previous work I did in Flash, providing an appropriate setting for a number of poems I had written about a particular set of characters, provided inspiration for taking this project in this direction, as I had been so thrilled with the results before (though they were much simpler). The series of Myst games, by Robyn and Rand Miller, as well as the related novels which were later published, showed me just how effectively an environment can enhance a narrative, and even suggest things far beyond what is provided in words.
      As I progressed through the stories and working through the drawings, I began to discover even more connections between the stories and surroundings than I had intentionally created. To me, that proved the success of the project, as even I am continually surprised by what I discover between the stories, the setting, and my own experiences.