Hometown (Inherited)

This year marks a decade since I began my Hometown (Inherited) project. Please join me for a ten year retrospective to be held at The Fruit in downtown Durham. 

  • Third Friday openings on April 19 and May 17, 6-9 pm (I sadly will not be in attendance for the April 19th opening!)
  • Opening reception on Saturday April 27, 4-7:30 pm
  • Closing reception and group art collaboration on Sunday May 12, 2-5 pm
  • Drop-in by appointment and Wednesdays 4-7 pm

Ten Year Retrospective at The Fruit

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Artist Statement

I became a mother in January of 2013. When I did, the lens of my world changed. As a new mother who was raising children in my own hometown—now their hometown—I found myself struck by the realization that the Durham of my childhood looks so different from the Durham of today, and that the Durham of today will invariably look quite different from the Durham of tomorrow. I could hear the conversations we would have one day—the comments I’d make being eerily reminiscent of the comments of every older generation before me. “This used to be an enormous field where I would run and play as a girl,” I would say. “Before it became the Harris Teeter.” I kept encountering locations—physical moments in time—in which the change and transition was evident, in which the environment was in an active state of flux. These were glimpses of something elusive that I felt should be captured. They hinted at answers to the questions that may be asked later—What happened to this ground we are standing on? How did we get where we are now?

And so, I began to take a series of photos of local parents and their children in these locations in flux, starting with an image of myself and my young sons standing in a clear cut forest in north Durham. From these images, I created mixed media pieces in which I blended collaged photography and acrylic paint. All of the images in these series depict transitional moments I witnessed in Durham’s landscape from 2014-2024. The series is, in part, about the changes in the landscape. But, even more, it’s about what we’re teaching and showing the next generation about these changes in the landscape. I believe it’s over-simplistic to assess these changes as positive or negative. Some aspects of these changes are inspiring and exciting; some are short-sighted and problematic. This is a series about asking questions, about awareness and intentionality, about opening our eyes fully to look and take in what is happening around us. It is about being able to remember this present moment we now stand in, years from now when the Durham of the future has eclipsed our memories of the Durham of the past.

 

This project is made possible by a 2014-2015 Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artists Grant from the Durham Arts Council with support from the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS OF THIS WORK: 

  • Hometown (Inherited). Brodhead Center at Duke University, Durham, NC, 2020.
  • Hometown (Inherited). Through This Lens, Durham, NC, 2018.
  • Hometown (Inherited). Triangle Community Artists Gallery at Triangle Community Foundation, Durham, NC, 2017 – 2018.
  • Hometown (Inherited). Ella Fountain Pratt Legacy Gallery at Durham Arts Council, Durham, NC, 2016.
  • Hometown (Inherited). Urban Durham Realty, Durham, NC, 2016.
  • Hometown (Inherited). Through This Lens, Durham, NC, 2016.

TWO-PERSON AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS OF THIS WORK:

  • Oh Mother. Hera Gallery at the Hera Educational Foundation. Wakefield, RI, 2023.
  • Pieces of Light. Allenton & Semans Galleries at the Durham Arts Council, Durham, NC, 2021 (catalog).
  • One Last Meet and Greet. Power Plant Gallery, Durham, NC, 2019.
  • Durham Art Guild’s 65th Annual Juried Exhibition. SunTrust Gallery at the Durham Arts Council, Durham, NC, 2019.
  • Portraits of Durham. Allentown and Semans Galleries at the Durham Arts Council, Durham, NC, 2019.
  • Uneven Ground: The Foundations of Housing Inequality in Durham, Durham City Hall. Partnership with the Bull City 150 project, Durham, 2018.
  • Uneven Ground: The Foundations of Housing Inequality in Durham, Rubenstein Hall, Duke University. Partnership with the Bull City 150 project, Durham, NC, 2017.
  • Uneven Ground: The Foundations of Housing Inequality in Durham. Partnership with the Bull City 150 project, exhibition at the MDC Building, Durham, NC, 2017.

PRESS COVERING THIS WORK INCLUDES: 

In addition to the original works in this series, archival, editioned prints of each of the original pieces are available for purchase. Please contact me with any inquiries!