Accoutrements & Shapes of Home

Terri Mccord

Home is a whirligig without the tornado. Home is a welcome mat, the place to step into. Home is repeatedly visited, becoming home – familiar and subsequently comforting. Home, not homely, is beautiful in its expansiveness, its acceptances of all visitors. Not just the ‘home team’, ‘home fries’, ‘home special’. This is the home with an h, lowercase, that looks like a chair – from the side. Four lowercase h’s at a dining table in the front room, aqua wallpaper, the home’s welcome room that serves art and guests, music piped in. Home base, home night, blueprints inside these walls, schematics part of the plaster. This chandelier glistens light in the home as if twelve moons shine above. The rug in the shape of the earth, threads millions of homes in this home. How to convince you that this is a home. See how they pet the cat, close the cabinets, leave the porch, kiss goodbye.

Accoutrements & Shapes of Home, prose, ink and gouache on paper, 4 x 6 x 6 inches

Interview by C. VanWinkle
March 4, 2023

What was the prompt you responded to? Can you describe it for me?

The overall image of the prompt is of an object, primarily white, that appears to be mechanical, modular, somewhat futuristic, and could be a foldable diagram for some sort of aircraft, so 2D that can be imagined as 3D. It has cut-outs or windows or see-throughs as well. The structure is flat on a background of muted tones that depicts water and a shoreline with hills and a mountain behind. The sky is gray and the overall feel is somewhat melancholy. The top and bottom of the background is a torn paper edge. The letters h-o-m-e are spelled out, however, each letter in a corner of the structure.

And what was your first impression of it?

I immediately wanted to figure out some sort of context. Where was this story taking place? Where was home? If the structure/aircraft could take you home if you could put together the piece, where was home? Or was this about being stranded somewhere? Or was the definition of "home" something different entirely? To be more succinct, I thought about building something, some sort of domicile of comfort, in contrast to the somewhat bleak setting.

That’s beautiful! How did you get started?

I observed, then brainstormed. And I allowed various images to enter my head as part of the creative/intuitive process. As an author, I honed in on the actual text, h-o-m-e, to kickstart ideas as well, thinking of the various connotations of the word, including cliches or common usage, and I played with moving the letters around spelling something else. From there, I turned to literal objects, scenes around me that I thought were an interesting combination visually, and I started to draw. The goal here was to realize relationships between things in a house or setting, objects that could have utilitarian purpose, things of sentimental value, things of beauty, and live things as well. I do like to work from life when I paint or draw because I think it seems more rounded, more dimensional, and also actually "speaks" to the viewer in a sensory way. I literally changed the color scheme of this grouping and I worked with watercolor after I completed the drawing, using water media for freshness and some immediacy. The vignette includes a modern-type chair, a sleeping cat, and a large portrait in a frame leaning against the wall. The portrait is old, but my depiction is newer.

Next, I decided to work on a couple of primitive-type houses as monoprints, mainly for quickness, texture, and simplicity. And actually for fun and experimentation. Then I thought I would try concentrating on language and see where the thought patterns would take me, how poetic and imagistic the writing might be, of conjecture, or perhaps discourse. I was super excited that the shape of the letters came into play.

That’s a cool trick! I love that you allow yourself to be guided by your process so much. I also admire that you explored this in more than one medium. Do you often mix and match like this?

I generally do work in different mediums simultaneously because I work on more than one project at a time. I also enjoy collage so the "putting together" of separate pieces or concepts is very appealing. I worked with pen and watercolor for spontaneity and subsequent color, then employed photographs and oil paint for fun, then I wrote.

Your piece was initially two-dimensional and then you folded it to make a structure. Is that something you've done before? Changing a 2D piece to 3D?

I have done that before. In this case, I wanted to push the artwork further, but the idea did not occur to me until later. It was not in some sort of plan. I may have been responding unconsciously or intuitively to the idea of a diorama, again as something more 3D or sculptural, and absolutely definitely I was responding to the original prompt. I think, depending on the perspective you take, that the structure shifts and can appear to be some sort of aircraft. I loved maneuvering and cutting some of the folds to create a unique interior visible in different ways. Lastly, I was thrilled that the 3D structure created a shadow that looked house-like, at least to me.

That’s how I saw it too. Really cool.

I had no plan whatsoever when I started folding but, again, I think I was working with an innate and studied sense of design. It was fun!

The finished product is a really interesting place to explore. A cat appears in both the painting and the poem. Are pets an important part of your sense of home?

I think living energy in the form of plants or animals is essential to a healthy, creative, non-stressful place. Everything creates relationships and currents and a sense of care and love. Ideally. They are a constant reminder of the necessity of care and awareness and what others might need. But they love unconditionally and trustingly unless they have been abused. They are innocent in a way we are not.

So true. I have two dogs and they definitely helped me cope with the last couple of years. How does this piece relate to the rest of your work?

It is a focal point of a small, interior, domestic scene, calm, colorful, hopefully breathing with life. It is also challenging to make a small scene interesting, and it creates a need for close observation, a response to what is literally there, a meditation, though, on what is being presented.

Is there anything else that you'd like to mention that I didn't ask for?

For me, it all frequently works in tandem: the ideas, the visuals, the shapes, colors, textures, memories. Everything sparks another idea and if I am able to concentrate and continue observing, the results continue to spread across several different mediums, which makes the process incredibly fascinating. The brain seems to dig deeper and deeper for making those connections and it becomes a whole-body experience. Or it can.

Last question! Now that you've done it, what's your advice to other newbies coming to this project?

Be open-minded. Explore. Have fun!

Perfect.

Call Number: C92VA | C94VAPP.mcAcco

Terri McCord has authored The Art and the Wait, In the Company of Animals, and the newest The Beauts. She has had poems nominated for Best of the Net, and Pushcart, and she has created the covers for her books. She has taught visual art, design, writing/composition, financial literacy and worked at many other things.