05 February 2025
I love the process of my current art series. It is always a challenge to fuse the digital vector method and the relevant topic in a way which makes sense to my way of thinking. In the undertaking, my hope is that the reader and viewer will find a sliver to ponder about and maybe challenge some their own stagnant thoughts.
PetuniaStreet House
As part of my current art series, #themindisahouse, I often take photos of dwellings. As we sped past on a highway aiming for our planned destination, I randomly snapped images with my cell phone of a squatter camp. The definition of a squatter is a person who unlawfully occupies an unused land. So, they are new settlers with no legal title to the ground they live on. One of the reasons why they are there in the makeshift and often unstable rooms are due to a lack of funds and work opportunities.
The sense of fleeting motion in the photo came out much better than I hoped for and some of the images made me consider how other people live. The poignant sight of washing on a wobbly line was a snapshot in time of an ordinary everyday routine in the lives of strangers. This perpetual act of washing clothes connects me through a common experience of domesticity with people I have never met.
This image of an empty yard with signs of life in the clean washing, evokes a sense of nostalgia in me while grounding me in my common placed humanity. These still hanging garments shifted my thoughts to appreciate simple beauty in the mundane action of cleanliness and thus finding joy in this everyday task which is part of the fabric of our lives.
[Written by Sulene Taylor]