Artist's Statements About Individual Works

At Home in the U.S.A. (from the Sweet Dreams suite, in progress)

Archival pigment print of scanned and computer-drawn images and typography, on Hahnemühle cotton rag • 25.5 x 19.5 • 2005. Printer: Silicon Gallery Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Embroidery (flowers): Ellen Marie Margaret Meyer Friedrich

When I happened to walk past some-one’s “bed” on a bitterly cold day in the capital city of our rich nation, I was moved to take a photograph. My own family lived modestly, but we always had a warm and comfortable place to lay our heads at night — a cozy spot made even more so by the beautiful needlework of our foremothers. I used one of these pillowcases as a backdrop (like a photo album page) for the sad streetscape picture, and included (for added irony) the words that countless mothers have whispered as their children drifted off to sleep: Sweet Dreams. And, to further point out the rift between the Haves and the

Have-nots, I included guidelines for the use of “at-home” cards, as well as (in the form of litter on the fence) an at-home card for the biggest Have that we have in the USA. It is of immense interest to me that the rich and the poor live side-by-side in this country and yet they inhabit completely different worlds.

How can there ever be empathy? And without empathy, how can there be change?