The Rooms

At some point the lines blur, doors to rooms, halls, parlors, cellars — the rooms of my life make up a house that does not exist outside my mind

Des Moines:

When I first took possession of the big house in my birth city, it had been boarded up for many months. A grand Victorian of the highest standard the 1890s had to offer. The rooms were large, elegant, even in the dilapidated state of which I found them. It had been mined of its jewels — domus of aurum — fireplace mantles, German & French tiles, light fixtures, built in book cases, stained glass, doors, anything that could be ripped out and hauled away under the cover of night, was. The mornings so full of possibility, restoring the spirit of a grand dame, tearing out what was rotted. The luster returned and I felt a rising in me, in the rooms on 22nd St. Gilded plaster moldings on the ceiling, carved floral motifs in the woodwork, parquet floors, room after room of decayed beauty coming alive again.

Broadlands:

Catalog house from Montgomery Ward, the biggest house they had to offer landed on the fields of Illinois, the rooms once housed a family of land owners, the well to do people of a rural county before the husband died. Sometime in the 1920s the rooms housed the dead of the community, it became the funeral parlor for its grandeur and size, those were beautiful, melancholic, and clingy rooms, I could always feel the unsettled spirits that called the house on Main Street home. At noon they would rise in the front parlor, spirits looking for life, the walnut framed doors and mantle, the original wallpaper of Lilies & flies from 1900 spans the twelve foot horsehair plaster walls. The elevator lift from the basement to the dining hall that ported bodies to be mourned before passage to another life and place. I left my husband in those rooms, something about them would not let me leave without a sacrifice, a loss and tears. A scratch to the exterior.

Sidney:

Little cottage on a babbling stream, high pitched roof, English style simplicity of the 1920s, always the rooms seemed sweet, cozy, and peaceful. A retreat from the harsh passages that led me there, I did not know that the eye of a storm could be so fleeting, like the trickling pace of the stream just outside. Babbling waters to soothe an aching soul — hundred year old trees to calm the loss of time, the afternoon light would spill in from the windows, drenching the rooms in warmth, muting the tones like a dream, rustic wainscoted stairway to heavily arched attic walls, with strangely shaped windows that peered out upon the brook and trees, my wounds scabbed over there, blood dried in the high noon light.

The Ortiz Mountains:

High mountain desert with no one around – solitude — strawbale rooms handcrafted from the land. The straw came from a local farm in Santa Fe. The stucco was mixed on the spot by the people that came together to build the house. The wood that framed the doors and windows was salvaged from an old mining house that stood on the property that had long fallen. A deep well of water filtered through granite. Solar system and wind turbine for energy, the rooms were self-sufficient. It felt dangerous, alive of scorpions and rattlers, of cougars and wolves, the primal nights looking up to the heavens like the first eyes to have ever seen the great beyond. A reprieve, an interlude woven out of time, the reflective nature and earthy quality of space, no attachments to the world as I had known, this was the root of connection, the days were one, the rooms bled out onto the land, and sky, and I had a place amongst things, the things that get lost in the world of civilized folks are found in the wild.

St. Paul:

Of all the rooms I’ve animated, the studios on E 4th st hold my deepest feelings of love. One of the oldest designated artist lofts in the nation. Concrete floors/16ft ceilings/floor to ceiling windows/Redstone and brick/a shared shower per floor/freight elevator, and a well of inspiration that seemed to flow from over a century of freethinking mindpools. The perfect feeling, yet, I could not stay.

This is where I felt the most alive with the least amount of time. The rooms were industrial, stark, yet vital, energized. Dusk came fast there, I would lie on my Edwardian brass bed in the lofted space I made as a sleeping chamber that looked out to the main space and ponder the passage of the days trappings, the floor to ceiling windows like two eyes gazed out onto the alley and another building only a few feet away, another artist space, more rooms with people, everywhere the folks, the ghosts, the structures of time standing tall and deep. I would think of my scars and accomplishments, of doorways and halls and smile as I fell to sleep, happy to be in rooms with such openness – with such space.

Yamhill St:

These rooms are depressed, from the 1930s & 40s, simple, functional, lacking inspiration. I stay, as I always do, knowing that in time I will be moving on to new rooms somewhere else, hopefully less dull than these. This part of Portland reflects a hardship in the nation; drab, small houses set close together, all looking similar: a sad sight from where I come. Rows of two bedroom block houses with only the landscaping and color separating them in style — some are well preserved, some not. No matter the look of the exterior, or the bleakness within, I always make the rooms mine whilst I inhabit them. It seems to always be night here, maybe it’s Portland, maybe it’s me. Insomnia comes so often, by night I write and drape, weave and felt. These rooms look lush from inside, fine antique textiles adorn the windows and doorways, Victorian hair wreaths and mourning portraits of ancestors hung about, wax dolls from the eighteenth century lounge on books, Bavarian china and French crystal from the markets of my travels grace the cupboards, brilliant colors from other days, centuries, African beaded treasures, Mexican Día de los Muertos momentos sprinkled throughout the rooms. This place is a mausoleum, and I a ghost.

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