Artist Statement

Growing up in East Oakland, my world was a couple miles radius except for the occasional trip taken to the barber in Chinatown or to see relatives in San Francisco. My World was in the house, the fenced front and backyard, and going to and from school. Me and my sisters big adventure were to walk 2 blocks to the grocery store and another block to the the variety store, sometimes to buy but most of the time to be fascinated and discover things of the outside world. My parents were immigrants. They were able to buy a house in the 1950's. The house Victorian. The furniture was Montgomery Ward and everything was makeshift.

My parents and uncle who live with us were junior carpenters making the house fit their needs. I dug holes in the walls, in the mattress, in the backyard, burying my treasures. We played, ate and slept in that house. A generation later, I've seen the bigger world, but in my dreams, in my memory, my mother's house is still home.

I have made a series of small wall sections inspired by my mother's house. maybe it's not exactly my parents, but it could be neighbors or relatives, immigrant people living in Victorians in East Oakland. The original walls were altered, repaired, changed by the newcomers. It showed layers and layers of its past history. Artifacts in the walls exposed left behind by the inhabitants to show that they had once existed.