ink and watercolor on paper, 2010,
8 1/2” x 11”
These drawings explore Arlington House, the antebellum mansion that was willed to Mary Custis Lee and was never really the property of Robert E. Lee. Research was generated from visits to the existing historic house. The subsequent drawings of interiors map Mary’s existence in her beloved home and illustrate pinnacle points in the house’s history. They represent extreme interiors that are designed into the existing rooms: a view of Mary Custis’s bedroom where her rose garden becomes the drapery and the drapery becomes the floor, and a chair that mimics Mary Custis’s immobility due to arthritis. By harnessing the surrealist potential of the room, Arlington House is activated to a more speculative experience. These drawings are a mechanism to investigate history by manipulating decorative arts elements and rituals and therefore capture the stories that surround the history of a home. These drawings are the activity of a designer understanding history.