Hearth, Fireplace, Altar: A Search for Home

Hearth, Fireplace, Altar: A Search for Home

Home

I have struggled with the idea of what home is and where are “safe places”.  Sit back for a second and think about your safe place—the image of a place you go if you are needed to calm.  My safe place used to be in a red rocker my dad made for me. It rocked at my kitchen table in the bay window alcove of my 1940s rock house. My climbing roses grew up the side of the house in thick twines of bark and fluffy petals.

All of my “safe” images and home involved the house I have lived in all of my adult life.  I brought my kids home to—the house in my childhood neighborhood, walking distance to my parents, and two of my uncles-one of these uncles lived in the “family home”. To me this was the only home I had known.  Home generally—my neighborhood, my family, and my home. My home was always open. It always smelled like food. There was always something to eat. People were always in my kitchen—all hours of the day.

I loved that part of my home but it wasn’t a happy home.  It is a paradox—all the appearance of happy but really not happy in the fundamentals.

Now, I am able to live a much more sincere existence but I still feel displaced.

I have been searching for meaning. My process for years has been to read a science book, an “out there” book and a spiritual book—when searching for meaning.  Generally, if all these diverse books have overlap on a subject, I figure there is truth somewhere in it.  I have been in my science book this term. I have been looking for what we really are in the United States, my home.  It helped me realize how truly part of an emerging demographic my kids are with an Italian grand mom and a first generation Japanese grand mom. There was a whole chapter on Hapa (halfs) in “The Next America” book I read for the semester. 

I have painted tornados, prickly pear, and bells this semester to symbolize home to me. For the final project, I looked at artists who loved to paint their homes. Of course, I looked at Bonnard and his love of his kitchen table, his cat, but mostly his bathtub. I settled on Vuillard, who loved his family, his interiors, and his pattern. 

Edouard Vuillard, Interieur a la Table à Ouvrage, 1893

Under sketch: Cal and Star

I haven’t gone back into to refine the pattern but this is the first intention. It is an image of my 14 year old, Cal-- his Beats on, in bed with his faithful border collie with him. He loves to play soccer and just made the JV team his freshman year. Cal ended up in ICU this week with a strange confluence of illnesses, which made it very difficult for him to breathe.

 It seems oddly prescient. I am uncertain what I am to learn from this but perhaps I should look more at my heart first and find my home based on what my heart says. I will paint my 16 year old, Ward next.