"Optimism's Promise" 36" x 48" O/P/P 2019
The oldest house in Aveyron, France. Now known as Maison de Jeanne, it was built during the 13th century.
Mobil hippie house in Berkeley. In 1970 Berkeley passed a law not allowing people to live in a converted van or truck.
A house abandoned in a forest in Stradbally, Ireland, as well as a VW converted and abandoned as a living abode.
The piece centers around Jung's metaphor of the house as the interior self, with the rooms signifying parts of the mind/self. I was intrigued by Clare Cooper's paper titled, "The House as a Symbol of the Self."
There is a tribute to the Chinese Lanterns Festival. For example, lanterns are now often made in the shape of animals. The lanterns can symbolize people letting go of their past selves and getting new ones,[6] which they will let go of the next year. The lanterns are almost always red to symbolize good fortune.
The ovals located in the left are signifiers of different skin tones
Clare Cooper University of Ca., Berkeley House as a Mirror of Self presents an unprecedented examination of our relationship to where we live, interwoven with compelling personal stories of the search for a place for the soul. Marcus takes us on a reverie of the special places of childhood--the forts we made and secret hiding places we had--to growing up and expressing ourselves in the homes of adulthood. She explores how the self-image is reflected in our homes/ power struggles in making a home together with a partner/ territory, control, and privacy at home/ self-image and location/ disruptions in the boding with home/ and beyond the "house as ego" to the call of the soul.
As our culture is swept up in home improvement to the extent of having an entire TV network devoted to it, this book is essential for understanding why the surroundings that we call home make us feel the way we do. With this information we can embark on home improvement that truly makes room for our soul.
