Art

On New Year's Day 2000, in his boyhood home on Summit Street in Roxborough, Mike Tierney lost his father in a fire. Today, the remnants of the tragedy still sit in another house owned by Tierney a few doors down—furniture, photographs, toys that still carry traces of the fire's smoke. Artist Lena Helen, whose husband knew Tierney as a child, rented that house last fall. Intrigued by the objects—untouched by Tierney, who was still struggling with what to do with his family's possessions—Helen began asking Tierney about the objects, first in casual conversation, then in more formal interviews, which she recorded. Those interviews, as well as the objects, comprise "Ashes to Art: Remnants and Reminiscence," an installation in the house now open to the public.

From the lace-tablecloth imprint on a kitchen table to "shadows" of jewelry left on other furniture to the vintage Triumph motorcycle parts Tierney and his brother had amassed, Helen found that everything had a story. Just picking up a G.I. Joe doll that belonged to Tierney's brother, who passed away in the mid-'90s, set off a long list of memories for Tierney. Other objects, like the funeral cards that his mother had collected over the years, reveal a sociological thread running throughout the show—that of growing up Catholic in blue-collar Roxborough in the '50s and '60s. Visitors move about the house, from room to room, seeing these family treasures and hearing Tierney talk about them on a looped recording. Trained in painting, sculpture and art history, Helen, a Massachusetts native and current MFA student at the Maine College of Art, says she recently "started integrating the idea of narrative into the visual-art process. I'm interested in splicing together documentary work with fine-art work, blurring those lines," she says.

"Ashes to Art: Remnants and Reminiscence," Fri., Dec. 9 and 16, 6-8 p.m.; Sun., Dec. 11 and 18; Wed., Dec. 14 and 21, 1-4 p.m., free, 630 Summit Ave., 215-298-2979.