Julie Upmeyer

Sian Hughes worked so incredibly hard for the entire first part of this year to pull this together. Sian works a lot with latex, taking casts of walls, and spaces and objects.  Instead of using layer after layer of built up latex, she discovered that if you use latex with silk, you get all the best qualities of both.

She used strips of silk with four to five layers of latex on them to make a physical cast of one of the walls inside of the house. The strips of fabric were then peeled off and hung in front of the stained glass windows as wallpaper might be hanging in a room.

The work references geological strata, strips of wallpaper, and the gentle light coming from inside [behind] almost makes you think of skin. The wall that she cast was quite a chunky exposed wall –  we had done a lot of hacking off of the wet plaster when we first got the house – so there are some very rough, very sandy, I suppose you could say,  dirty walls.

The ones she found most fascinating had quite a few chunks that came out with the cast… it’s great, it’s just so skin-like.

We’ve been in the house most every day since she installed this. I feel so spoiled because she installed it and then left, so I’m the only one who gets to see this work. It changes so much from the first morning light to the harsher afternoon light.

 It really makes the house come alive.

I’m so pleased to have this with us.