The installation will be on display throughout Amherst through June.
These are two of the houses Deerfield Academy student Peter Krasznekewicz created as part of his environmental installation celebrating the poetry of Emily Dickinson. The houses are displayed throughout downtown Amherst. AMHERST - About 18 months ago, Deerfield Academy student Peter Krasznekewicz came to the executive director of the Emily Dickinson Museum with an idea.
“He came in with concepts and illustrations of a prototype,” Jane Wald remembered. The concept was to build white houses bearing the words of the famous poet. He asked Wald what she thought about his school project.
But Wald said, “there was something about the imagination and creativity of this idea that was immediately captivating.”
Now the houses that had been on the grounds of the Deerfield Academy are laced throughout the downtown - including the Homestead, at 280 Main St., The Evergreens and Sweetser Park among other locations. The houses will be on display through June and an opening reception is being held at 1 p.m. Saturday in conjunction with the annual poetry walk.
Krasznekewicz, now a senior, will speak about the work he calls “Dwell in Possibility.”
What spoke to Wald about the project was “the creative imagining of Emily Dickinson’s poetry and the use of words, words that are building blocks of expression that touch an enormous range of emotions and themes and personal experiences. Having the words wrapped around each of the white houses makes it captivating and an observer becomes a participant in the art.”
Looking “at all sides of the structure teases out the thought and message of a particular line of poetry. It slows us down so individuals can consider, contemplate each individual word with how it fits in with the next,” she said.
In a statement about the work, Krasznekewicz said he was inspired by Christo, the environmental installation artist who created The Gates in New York City. He wanted to come up with is own environmental installation.
He came up with this idea after brainstorming with friends. “At a young age, I was exposed to the works of Emily Dickinson by my older sister who loved her poetry, and we actually made a slide show about a little white house named Emily. By taking the words of Emily Dickinson and painting them on the white surfaces of the houses, I was able to take a simple building form and turn it into a profound object of thought that related to the surrounding community.”
Wald said she was impressed by how he laid out the houses on the downtown landscape. “While the houses are uniform, he examines planes and he plots (the location) of every single house.” He wants the houses to fit into the landscape and yet remain connected to the next.
The houses are about seven feet long, four feet wide, and eight feet tall, made from Forest Stewardship Council certified and formaldehyde-free plywood panels.
In keeping with the environmental theme, Krasznekewicz wrote that the materials will be donated to the Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity when the exhibit is taken apart.