It’s October 1st, the humidity is gone and it’s Sunday – time to go up to the attic which hasn’t been cleaned since we moved in during the summer. This 1870 house was owned previously by one family for nearly all of its existence, and there are piles of photographs, tarnished silver-plated spoons and forks, and other detritus that people can’t bear to throw away scattered across the attic floor. It is always the sentimental Christmas greetings, graduation cards, death notices clipped out of brown newspapers that are hard to put in the trash. But what I found today was weirdly coincidental, a handwritten wedding invitation for Victory Milano and James Scott for October 1, 1950.
There are only a few facts I can relate about this invitation – it was mailed for a mere three cents one week before the wedding. Kingston was so small at that time that the sender only needed to list the addressee, street, and city for it to arrive. The church where the wedding was held was founded in 1845 and attended by a strong Irish immigrant population and continues to operate today.
Initially, I was puzzled over the name Victory, but that is a Latin derivative for the woman’s name, Laura, stemming from the laurel branches placed on the victor’s heads during Roman times. I wondered if Victory went by Laura or Victoria as she lived her life.
The place where they planned the reception did make me pause – the Kozy Tavern operated one block from this house for decades. After closing, the place is now operating as The Beverly, a place where I frequently hold artist meetings. The current owner kept the old wooden bar, painted murals above and tin ceilings when he reopened. Now I am imagining how Victory and James came here after their wedding on October 1, 1950, and were congratulated by family and friends.
Continuing upward, 
The artist has reimagined the entire small floor as a parlor, perhaps inspired by the 1901 photo when parlors were a means of civil discourse. The walls have been papered in a moody dark forest scene with birds and forest plants – the settee has an elaborate snake coiled, ready to strike. The table has been set for tea with a tea set that has also been elaborately decorated with the dark, flora, and fauna of the jungle. The artists’ work is influenced by her native country, Columbia, along with the symbolism of 19th Century opulence and what it took from nature.
took over the entire space. The glass viewers placed in front of the windows invited viewers to look down over the scenery below – the glass created a funhouse viewpoint of the scenery below, reinforcing the idea of being in another world. 
The artists shared this additional information about this work in their interview: “The stairwell allows for a slow and intimate reading of the work as the viewer ascends or descends the stairway. Repetition is a thread that runs through all our work, from drawings to installation. We feel that when you are dreaming about something you think about it over and over, sometimes for years.”
Today, over 47 years after this song first broadcast on the airwaves, we see the same situation where we can 
Altogether, eight artists are exhibiting work that could be wildly diverse without this premise. For instance, in Jinkook Hwang’s “Sushi Nam Yeo” series, rice is seen as the object of happiness and love, stemming from his cultural background. In “Couple Sushi,” the artist draws a man and woman resting on a bed of rice that has been magnified to signify its importance in his life.
I also see this house every day on my commute to work, not particularly beautiful, but the upright piano outside the front porch of this abandoned house haunts me.
