Forever Summer (2004 – 2008) is a site-specific installation/environment that utilizes the interior space of the home to explore and challenge notions of comfort and protection, private and public, and the boundaries between art/life/architecture/design. The title refers to the sense of longevity and nostalgia, childhood dreams and adult longing traditionally associated with the idea of “home.” Through this project I am transforming my entire living/working environment (kitchen, bathroom, living room, hallway, bedroom, studio, and office) using familiar aesthetics from my past -- textile patterns cut from discarded curtains of the seventies, tile carpeting, branded leather, and arts/crafts from my childhood (quilling, macramé, and fabric design) to cover all surfaces (walls, ceilings, floors, cabinets, fixtures, and furniture), creating new meaning and context.

Forever Summer references and borrows ideas from artists such as Dadaist Kurt Schwitters, who erected the Merzbau, a real-life expressionistic interior, in his studio in Hanover, Germany; feminists Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, who spearheaded Womanhouse - a series of fantasy environments exploring the various personal meanings and gender construction of domestic space; and conceptualist David Ireland, whose work “ has a visual presence that makes it seem like part of a usual, everyday situation;” architects and designers such as Verner Panton, who created floor-to-ceiling and back-down-the-walls-to-the-floor, psychedelic interiors in the sixties and seventies, César Manrique, who designed Star Trek-like party spaces; and communities of West Africa, where each year after harvest, women gather to restore and paint their mud dwellings which are washed away by rain every year.

The project has also been strongly influenced by my mother, who I believe has had the greatest influence on me as an artist. She has always been interested in arts and crafts and I can remember as a young child, watching her paint, work on crafts projects, and spend a great deal of time designing our home. My mother was also the first person to introduce me to murals. When I was three, she painted a large flower mural on my bedroom wall (it's true – the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree) as a gift to me. I have recreated this mural in my bedroom, expanding on it by using materials and design elements that have become signatures of my work.

The images here are from different phases throughout the installation. The project will be completed in September 2008 and open to the public in conjunction with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts' Bay Area Now exhibtion that I will be in.