Lisa Thorpe

Click Your Ruby Slippers & Chant “There’s No Place Like Home”

I’ve been thinking about what home means this past week.  It is a loose thread I’ve been pulling in both art and mental wanderings and this sweater of an idea is still unraveling in my mind, but I’ll do my best to share it here with you.  At its most basic definition home=residence.  But all of us old enough to have moved around a bit know that ones residence isn’t always home, home needs to be comfortable it needs to fit, to allow you to be at ease, turn off and recharge.  Another definition of home is one’s birthplace or place of origin yet another is family group.  All these definitions, while true, are inadequate.  The struggle of  home and self is often played out in the lives of young adults.  A number of my friends and family have children who have gone off to college in the past couple of years.  Some are struggling with the transition.  I think part of that comes from having home (as in your place of comfort) and self in two different places.  A dorm or apartment with a bunch of roommates is can be a exciting, fun home base but not home.  There is a disconnect, a dissonance that comes from not feeling at home in the place that you live.  It’s all a necessary part of becoming an adult, of differentiating from family and becoming ones own self, living your life on your own trajectory and not the trajectory set by your family. It is an essential, uncomfortable, exhilarating time.  I’ve been pondering this process in my own life, trying to remember when home came to reside with me and not with my parents.  It is not a deep line in the sand or specific X on the calendar, it wasn’t leaving for college or getting my first real job, or even getting married that marked the spot.  But somewhere in all that spinning of life and place my residence became my home. Home was with me.  The notion of home began to reside in me not outside of me.    This of course doesn’t mean that I don’t cherish my visits with my parents or that I always feel comfortable wherever I am or that I don’t get lonely sometimes in my drafty, little fixer-upper of a heart, but the old kitschy cliché Home is where the heart is rings true to me and if you listen real close, you’ll hear your own heart beat repeat  HomeSweetHomeSweetHomeSweetHomeSweetHome.

The Little House encaustic collages above will be on sale at my next art sales in November and December.  You, my faithful readers, can have first crack at them, approximately 5×7 inches and $20 each with $5 shipping let me know if you want one via email or comment box.  Home Sweet Home banners are available also.  Each panel is 8 inches square with 3 inches between.  You can custom order the length you want, $10 per panel.  These are not listed for sale on my website but please check out what is at http://lisathorpe.com/