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Editorial note: “Built on Buried Walls” was\u00a0exhibited at Meyerhof Gallery in Baltimore in 2015, as part of Jason M. Stewart’s installation, “Four Voices.” Read below for Stewart’s perspective on this individual work.<\/em><\/p>\n Built on Buried Walls<\/em> explores the complexities of the sentimental relationships between objects, memory, and place. I am the only child of separated parents, whose marriage ended before I was born, and I spent much of my youth traveling between different houses. This flux of living conditions has engineered in me a specific interest in how one honors their past through the objects they keep. Specifically, I am interested in the items that do not receive the privilege of being in lived-in spaces; instead, they are packed up and stored away like time capsules that are opened once every few years, only to remind one of an inability to let go.<\/p>\n The work is inspired by a plaster statue that has lived in my studio for over 6 years. This statue was acquired during a thrift store visit one Saturday afternoon. There, I spotted the 18 inches tall plaster of the Virgin Mary. It rested sideways on a bottom shelf, in a rarely visited aisle of the store. On the base it read \u201c$3.95,\u201d and upon inspection, I found that parts of the figure were significantly chipped and worn and someone had tried to \u201ctouch up\u201d the face with a blotchy yellow ochre and burnt sienna flesh tone. I found it interesting that this object, tattered and damaged, would be donated and sold rather than thrown in the trash. I should point out that I am not a religious person, so I felt no connection to this object for its Christian references. Rather, I bought this object because I couldn\u2019t help but speculate on the past life it had lived and how meaningful it may have been to a previous owner who could not throw it away \u2013 instead choosing to donate it for resale.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n