To build a home by Gina Zetts
It is in our nature as humans to want for a home, a point of origin to start from and safe place to return at journey's end. When that place is lost, we risk becoming lost too. This body of work is an exploration of how the spaces we occupy shape us. It’s location is focused on the American landscape in an attempt to explore the ideals that have developed within the psyche of the American culture. I am particularly interested in socially and geographically vulnerable locations. Places that are in liminal states of existence because of environmental tragedy or economic failure.
When our economic decisions overshadow our human and cultural needs we risk far more than just losing the building we call home or the streets that collectively makeup that location. We risk losing our values, morals, history, and even future.
The particular interest of this body of work comes from personal experiences as well as borrowed stories. Born in a Pennsylvania oil refinery town, I am no stranger to the perils of the over-consumption of natural resources. As a resident of Oakland, CA, a socially vibrant city, perpetually in an economically and geographically vulnerable position, I have developed a sensitivity to the unique relationship that a cultural sense of belonging has on the urban psyche and landscape. As a resident of Rochester, NY, a rustbelt city living in the shadow of the monoliths of its cultural prowess, I have cultivated an appreciation for the historical significance of specific local and the role that memory plays in shaping one’s sense of home. It is places like these that stir my imagination and sympathies. I have gathered and collected these homes that have shaped me. They now travel with me as memories and stories that guide this work, to honor the very idea of “home” in all of its manifestations.
“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned. It impels mighty ambitions and dangerous capers. We amass great fortunes at the cost of our souls, or risk our lives... Hoping that by doing these things, home will find us acceptable or failing that, that we will forget our awful yearning for it.”
― Maya Angelou, “All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes”
My work is an exploration of the human form as an object. I am dealing primarily with the physical appearance of the female, yet my examination is not solely within the realm of the feminine. Often, my work is centered around the archetype of a young girl who acts as a storyteller or vessel. I use precious materials such as glass, fine metals, and found objects because I want the viewer to feel an intense need to care for this creature; to see it as being both vulnerable and desirable.
The context of the girl's existence is derived from a mixture of experiences both personal and borrowed. The work exists as a memorial documenting certain aspects of our culture, often dealing with the struggle to find individualized identity within the confines of society, religion, family, and inevitability of death. It is a narrative object reminiscent of the adolescent female character in classical literature, which is attractive, appealing, perverse and often dangerous. And in the end, like that literary archetype, nothing more than an object to be desired and cared for by the society which created her.
ver·nac·u·lar
/vərˈnakyələr/
noun
the language or dialect spoken by the ordinary people in a particular country or region.
architecture concerned with domestic and functional rather than public or monumental buildings.
adjective
(of language) spoken as one's mother tongue; not learned or imposed as a second language.
(of architecture) concerned with domestic and functional rather than public or monumental buildings.
We shape our dreams, values, and expectations in the locations that surround us. These are the places that give us that sense of home, wonder, connection, comfort, or sometimes emptiness and loss. The spaces that we occupy shape our very sense of humanness. When these places fail us, it can feel indicative of our own weaknesses, imperfections, and fragility. When we experience natural disasters that we consider “acts of god” it is easy to find sympathy for communities in peril, but when those disasters are a result of our own economic pursuits such as oil spills and chemical contamination it is harder to come to terms with the loss. Rife with feelings of guilt it is easier to brush those communities away as a footnote in history.
I was once told that “art is a suggestion, not an action.” Art is not burdened with offering a solution, but rather, it is itself an offer of possibilities. It is a catalyst for action.
“West Coast Bricks” 2016, kiln cast cast glass, enamel, found wood frame, 8.5” x 7” x 0.5”
“Sunny 1BR on Lake Merritt” 2016, kiln cast cast glass, enamel, found wood frame, 8.5” x 7” x 0.5”
“ 81st Ave.” 2017, kiln cast cast glass, enamel, found wood frame, 9” x 11” x 0.5”
Collaboration with Spencer Pittenger
Blown and cast glass, loadstone, steel, silver
12 in x 8 in x 8 in
2015
Collaboration with Sally Fairfax
Cast, fused, and lampworked glass
2018
Viewable in the Permanent Collection of the Bolinas Museum https://bolinasmuseum.org/
Love locks represent a momentary gesture, a playful and slightly rebellious expression of love.
In romantic theory Love Locks remain in place forever but we are subverting that with the fragility of the material.
It is a sweet acknowledgment that love doesn’t need grand gestures.
Collaboration with Spencer Pittenger
Hot sculpted glass, site specific installation
Dimensions vary
2014
Collaboration with Spencer Pittenger
Hot sculpted glass, site specific installation
Dimensions vary
2014
Collaboration with Spencer Pittenger
Hot sculpted glass, site specific installation
Dimensions vary
2014
Collaboration with Spencer Pittenger
Hot sculpted glass, site specific installation
Dimensions vary
2017
1:12 scale, mixed media, 2016
1:12 Scale, Mixed Media, 2018
1:12 Scale, Mixed Media, 2020
1:12 scale, mixed media, 2021
1:12 Scale, Mixed Media, 2022