“What I’m really interested in is the future and what it looks like” and “in inventing a future through history and material culture and art.” – J. Morgan Puett, designer and artist. Puett elaborates further on this philosophy: “It’s not about nostalgia or re-enacting,” she said. “I believe that all of these time periods and histories are pressing in on us at once.” These quotes are from a NY Times article, In Her Own World by Alastair Gordon. Be sure to view the related NY Times slideshow.

I just finished re-decorating my bedroom with mustard-colored and ivy-covered painted walls, faded floral curtains and a blue floral strip quilt. The room reminds me of the comforts of my grandmother’s house in Wichita, when I was growing up – but it is not a direct quote of her 1920s/30s prairie heritage. The room instead reflects a collective memory of comfort and coziness, while still being part of the 21st century.

Then this morning, I read the NY Times article and realized that what Puett was creating is what we should all be doing, making a place that is an “ongoing experiment in art, design and aestheticized living”…The house is filled with Ms. Puett’s and Mr. Dion’s eclectic collections of art, antiques, hundreds of books, stuffed birds, skulls, outsider art and ephemera. It’s at once a private, family space and a public, multipurpose environment, as Ms. Puett describes it. “This is not my dream house,” she said. “This was designed as a central community kitchen and reference library.”"

The web site for Puett’s space, called Mildred’s Lane, defines the project as: “Mildred’s Lane is an artist-driven project for the rethinking of the contemporary art complex, which is tucked away in the woods of Pennsylvania, on the upper Delaware River. It is a large-scale collaboration between the artists J. Morgan Puett and Mark Dion who have lived and worked on this rustic 96-acre site since 1998. From the beginning there has been a desire to critically re-imagine the space between environmental practice, artistic domesticating, and socially engaged research. By hosting and supporting international cultural producers, organizing informal residencies, developing site sensitive projects, seminars, dinners, research think tanks and more — they have made Mildred’s Lane a significant but invisible center for new forms of cultural practice.”

Puett’s web site offers glimpses of many more of her installations, including grafters bee shack with embroidered veil and miscellaneous bee-related textiles; the nurse’s uniform, which covers the uniform’s history and future (intergalactic nurse); and a collection of wonderful shots of her (former) NY store, when it was in Soho.