detail 
back view
created by Jenny Detra (jennydetra@cox.net) phone:(316) 558-8498 address:1930 N. Brunswick Cir. Wichita KS 67212
This is a 3 dimensional vignette. The base measures 24" x 15", the house measures aproximately 17" x 10". I have always loved the basic premise behind the "Day of the Dead" in that it honors our departed loved ones, but on the other hand, thinking of my ancestors as skeletons has always bothered me a little. The idea behind this piece is to honor family that has gone on before me by using old photo's, scanning and resizing them appropriately and having them all co-exist, peaking out of doors and windows in an "ancestral home". I even included two of my beloved pets which sit on the front porch, "guarding" the house. My dad and my brother, who both passed this year stand in the open doorway, smiling and welcoming those yet to pass into the world of spirit. It is basically a shrine, mixing my own take on the "Day of the Dead" with Halloween. I assembled the piece using everything from some purchased paper mache blanks, scrap cardboard, a salt box, and scrap as well as purchased wood pieces. The porch poles and roof finials were assembled from various purchased wood shapes and painted and decorated with pumpkin faces.The tower on the left of the piece is topped by an altered paper mache christmas ornament and a felt witch hat. The two orange bottle brush trees on either side of the house were first bleached, then re-dyed orange and then decorated with a black bead garland, black glittered beads and topped with velvet bats (martha stewart paper punch) The lawn is covered with dried moss and peppered with small fallen fall leaves. The gate and some of the window frames were cut using my cricut machine. I also used some pieces of vintage graphics to decorate the house, halloween decorations my mother had passed down from the 1940's. One side of the back of the house is open and includes layers of family photographs, some dating back to the late 1800's. Purchased fall "picks" serve as trees on either side of the back of the house and on one side of the house, what is unseen, due to only being able to post 3 photos, is a lattice emerging from a flower pot with an orange climbing rose vine.