Michelle de la Vega

Dream House is hundreds of sewn paper pillows made from photocopies of my father’s architectural drawings.

This piece is about growing up with a father who until the age of 80, lived with undiagnosed PTSD. It collectively deals with the challenges as well as creative redemption that resulted from the psychological stress my father experienced as a Korean War veteran. As a way to cope he had inventive and imaginative methods of escape, such as the prolific creation of exquisitely executed, deeply personal architectural drawings; whimsical, passionate odes to his family and an ideal of the “American Dream”. My dad’s drawings represent a thread of survival and inveterate inspiration that tightly bound together the lives of my family.

A community engagement workshop and showing related to the Dream House project was held through The Vet Art Project. Military veterans and their families made dream house pillows through drawing and collage and exhibited them during a live performance.