Asakiyume mita

Peter Krasznekewicz, who just finished his junior year in high school, is the creator of the marvelous Little White House Project, which I wrote about in this entry. He conceived of having words from the writings of Emily Dickinson, stenciled onto little white houses, and placed on and around the Emily Dickinson homestead, in Amherst, Massachusetts. Peter was kind enough to talk to me, via email, about this wonderful project.





Your little white houses are so tremendously appealing. They beg to be interacted with, walked around, thought about. There are so many different ways to think about them as objects: you could see them as points for meditation, for example, or as shelters for words. When you think of them yourself, what thoughts do you have about what they do and how they work?

Originally I only had the quotes of Dickinson on one of the roof panels, but after talking to an artist at Deerfield Academy I decided to spread the words all over the houses to involve the viewer even more. I began to think of the houses as canvases and the words as the painting. Having fragments of quotes and single words on each panel made each panel unique and part of a puzzle that needed to be put together by the viewer. It also forces people to think of each word individually and then together as a whole.

As I stenciled the quotes on the houses in Saint Annes church, I spent a lot of time thinking intensely about a single word or phrase. Words such as Nobody, Love, Venture, Beauty, Luck, Hammer, Haunted became more powerful and poignant. Also, when you look at many house together you see groups of words that create new phrases or thoughts.

One of the major goals of my project was to create art that was interactive and involved the viewer more so than a painting on a wall. By putting them outside in nature it forces people to not only enjoy the house but also the trees, flowers an, grass and buildings nearby. I like to say that they give the site of the exhibit a new outfit. I noticed that after the exhibit left Deerfield that the grounds looked a bit naked to me, and I sometimes visualize how the campus looked when the exhibit was up. For example, when I look at the science center I always think of the house that had the quote "The brain is wider than the sky."

( Read more... )

Thank you so much for the interview, Peter, and best of luck!



The Little White House exhibit remains up on the grounds of the Emily Dickinson Museum through the end of June.

A most remarkable art installation was going up on the grounds of the Emily Dickinson House in Amherst, Massachusetts: poetry houses: whitewashed reliquaries, inscribed with phrases from Emily Dickinson's poems.

I first caught sight of them from across the street:



Intrigued, I crossed over, and they were everywhere:





Further on, in a small park where a silhouette of Emily Dickinson talks to a silhouette of Robert Frost, three men were hard at work putting up another one.

( three photos under here )

That one says "Beauty is not caused. It is. It IS"

From those three, I found out that the installation was the brainchild of a student at Deerfield Academy, a prep school in the area. I was impressed with his vision, and with how beautiful the execution was, and at the same time, hearing the name of a prep school, and looking at the materials and labor required to make the exhibition happen, I got to thinking about the financing of art. Did a grant make this possible? A wealthy patron or patrons? Did the student ask for donations of supplies from local businesses? I expect one day soon there will be an article in the local papers, and my questions will be answered.

Edited to add: This article on the Deerfield Academy website talks about the project. The creator is Peter Krasznekewicz, a junior.

Another addition: Link to the artist's website: Art Action. On the site are more photos of the houses in situ all over the town of Amherst--so it's more far reaching than I realized!