In the Dwelling House

What Remains

In 2004 the Mattress Factory loaned me 516 Sampsonia for the installation “What Remains.” For this work, I filled the window openings with granite inserts engraved with common cemetery imagery and the names, ages, and occupations of residents of the house circa 1900. The information about the people was gathered from census data, and the information is elegant in its simplicity and the archaic sound of the occupations. The information tells a story, though the details of the story lie in the imagination of the viewer. The people and their lives become the “past you did not know you had” from the Calvino quote. When I moved to Pittsburgh in 2001, having only ever lived in the south, I certainly felt surrounded by a past I never knew I had. What Remains was my way of making a small, overlooked part of that past a bit more tangible.

Ruth Stanford

In The Dwelling House

For “In the Dwelling-House,” I am doing an archaeological investigation of sorts, sifting through the things that previous occupants of the house have left behind. I have gathered a variety of “artifacts” and gone through every room looking for clues in the peeling paint, layers of wallpaper, crumbling plaster, newspaper clippings, etc. I have gone through hundreds of times, sometimes with a flashlight, sometimes with a camera, sometimes on my knees, and I still see something new every time. There is a beauty in the decay and a certain poetry to the way that time and the elements have altered a space that served so long as a home. My goal with “In the Dwelling-House” is simply to highlight a few of the details of the space that I find fascinating as a way to entice the viewer to take their own journey through the time and the space that is 516 Sampsonia.

Ruth Stanford

What Remains
Read the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Review
by Mary Thomas