Porches (RGB)

Installed at the Walton Young House

at the University of Mississippi Museum

February–August 2019

Link: https://museum.olemiss.edu/walton-young-house-art-installation/

“Porch RGB (Light)”

Rebekah Flake and Valerie Guinn Polgar, together, have incorporated their skills of photography, animation, and electronics to create this site-specific artwork. They worked with the theme of the porches, basing their creative choices off of what could be seen literally and figuratively if one were to stand on each porch and face out. The North Porch faces the town, the South Porch faces nature, and the West Porch faces the University. The Walton-Young House location (sitting at the intersection of town, nature, and University) serves as a beacon or "lighthouse" that is a point of connection for the whole community.

The North Porch is styled in blue, based off of the color of the Oxford Water Tower; the South Porch is styled in green, in order to represent nature; and the West Porch is styled in red to represent the University of Mississippi. In addition to painting the window frames in these respective hues, the artists incorporate light elements by using LED’s and animations to bring attention to the fact that a single beam of light or a digital image can be separated into red, green and blue.

The glass within the window frames, which are genuine antiques sourced locally and refinished by the artists, hold photographs that are visible during the day from natural sunlight and visible at night through backlighting from solar-powered lights.

The original photographs are inspired by the theme of each porch and highlight the wide range of facades that signal "home" throughout the L-O-U community.

The North Porch is accompanied at night by a rear-projected animation through the 3 windows that are to the right of the main porch. Each window represents one of the three themes, through content and color, within animated shapes inspired by the lovely circle and diamond pattern found above these windows.