The Homebodies series explores the personal spaces of community members, the artworks and interesting objects they’ve collected through the years, and how those pieces live with them every day. For a few posts, we’ve asked members of our gallery committee for a tour. Our lucky number 13 tour guide is Marjorie Williams, a talented local artist/photographer and one of the gallery committee members that’s helping make our darkroom dreams come true this October/November! Longtime Holland friends will recognize a few pieces featured here (especially this awesome collection of Showprints!) and we love to see it. Check out Marjorie’s own work on Instagram here.
I’ve moved around a lot in the past few years, and decorating my space is always an important part of feeling at home in a new house. I like moving because it’s an opportunity to switch up how I arrange my art. I just moved in August and I have been focusing on beautifying my space even more this time because I have been doing all of my classes online due to the pandemic, so I spend a lot of time in my room. I don’t have a huge budget for art, so most of the things on my walls were free or cost very little. I have a lot of found photographs, show prints, postcards, and fliers. A lot of the collages, paintings, and photographs were made by me. Lately, I have been really into hanging up photographs that I cut out of old National Geographics. I have a lot of stuff on my walls so I won’t go through everything, but here are some of my favorites.
1. When I moved into this house for some reason I decided to arrange everything roughly by color, so this section is mostly green and blue tones. This painting in the top left is actually a replica of a painting by my grandmother because someone convinced her that replicas on canvas were a good way to sell her art. She has several copies of this one and others in storage, so I took this one.
2. On the bottom left is a Showprint from The Holland Project . I love and miss the Showprints because it’s a great way to add art to your collection and you get to read the backs of them from time to time and remember what was going on years ago. I have several that I’ve held onto for a long time.
3. The poster on the bottom right is actually the original of a show poster by Tara Tran. They gave it to me because they didn’t need it anymore after they made copies of it and I was so excited, because the tones from the colored pencils are really beautiful. This show actually ended up being at the Potentialist instead of The Gutter because shows had been getting shut down a lot due to noise complaints and they were worried about getting cited by the city, but then we got a noise complaint at the Potentialist anyway.
4. The photos along the right side are from my road trip to the Grand Canyon last summer. There are lots of photos from that trip all over my walls because those were the only rolls I’ve ever gotten prints of since it’s so expensive.
5. Both of these pieces are from Ray Mueller’s solo show Ties That Bind at Window Mine this past May. I bought the one on the left, Untitled, because it reminded me of the subject matter that I like to photograph and I like how the glow around the pole makes it feel like the energy coursing through it is visible. The one on the right, Untitled (Goodbye, good earth), was gifted to me by Ray because he said he was just going to throw it away and I couldn’t bear for that to happen. The little piece above them is a diagram of poisonous plants that I found at a thrift store, but I still couldn’t remember what poison oak looked like when I was in the forest this summer.
6. This is my wall of warm tones/rainbow colors and it’s usually what people see behind me during Zoom meetings. The pink bandana that I think of as the centerpiece was designed by Ally Messer and then printed at Teen Art Night a few years ago. The poster to the left of that was designed by Summer Orr for the Soccer Mommy show in October 2018. I was the photographer for that sold-out show and was super happy that I was able to snag a poster.
7. Self-portrait by my grandmother, Marilyn Melton, painted in 1983. I like it because she looks so solemn and different from how she looks now, and people usually comment on it when they see it because her gaze is so intense.
8. How to Mow a Lawn that Has Just Been Mowed is a Showprint made by HT MacDiarmid from several years ago that I’ve always liked. I’ve actually seen it in a number of my friend’s houses as well. It’s sort of cool to think about all of the places where prints like these may have ended up.
9. Painting by my sister, Lainey Williams. She didn’t like it so she gave it to me unfinished because I absolutely love it. The print below the bandana and the drawing to the right of it were also done by her. I love her art so much because it has such a magical quality to it.
This is my blue toned wall of art. It’s set up above my desk where I scan film, edit photos and work on paintings and collages. I’m still adding stuff to this one.
10. Virgin and Child II is a print made by Ana McKay in 2018. They traded it to me for one of my photographs. I love trading work with people because then both of us get to add cool new stuff to our collections. This print reminds me of how I feel with Fern, the cat I live with now. She’s my roommate’s cat and I already know I’ll miss her so much when I don’t live here anymore.
11. The black and white enlarged film on the upper left is a piece by Denali Lowder. I saved it from the calendar that Holland put out in 2017 because I liked it so much. I love how Denali uses the medium of film, incorporating the aspects that are unique to it rather than trying to hide them.
12. I made the collage on the bottom right to use for the show poster for Homeshake in 2017. I’m really glad that I hung on to the original because I don’t have a copy of the poster anymore. I’ve always liked how the pattern of the china evokes water moving around the boat, and I think it pairs well with the flowing lines of the painting I made that’s hanging above it and to the left.