MFA Thesis: Stella, Missouri

Below is the “Stella” installation of the MFA thesis exhibition “Excavating Missing Memorabilia.” Each image of a close-up carved tile is accompanied by a short poetic prose describing the memory it exhumes.

  • Date 2022
  • Type MFA Thesis Exhibition

Stella, Missouri / Population 178

We're in a new house with new people but she has a whole toy room! The wooden people fit perfectly in the seats of the tiny plastic car. The walls are dark brown wood with vertical slits going from the floor to the ceiling. The carpet is a bluish color and fluffy near the walls but flat near the middle of the room. We play in here until lunch time.

We are done eating breakfast and go outside to run in the pasture with the cows and horses and dig for metal scraps left behind after the tornado took out the dairy farm. Then we run to Grandma's house next door and she tells us we can have ONE popsicle from the freezer! I pick the purple one. Then we go to play with the snails on top of the well house.

I am 6. There is a big metal tin full of wooden logs with plastic green roof pieces. My brother shows me how to stack them in a square and place the roof on top. I decide that I am going to build a log cabin someday since now I know exactly how to do it!