Last summer, assemblage artist Dominique Moody brought NOMAD, a “tiny house” on wheels that serves as her living and creative space, to Harrison House Music, Arts & Ecology, located in Joshua Tree, California. The 140-square-foot mobile shotgun house, whose title stands for “Narrative, Odyssey, Manifesting, Artistic, Dreams,” is a gem of a compact, self-sufficient dwelling that highlights Moody’s deft joining of aesthetics and practicality. More than this, though, NOMAD is a work of social sculpture; Moody often uses the porch as a platform for spinning personal narratives around issues of affordable housing, race relations, and art as a tool for healing. The daughter of a U.S. Army officer, Moody, who was born in Germany, knows about the nomadic life firsthand. After her large family returned to the United States, they moved frequently. They landed in Philadelphia, where they restored abandoned houses with the promise of ownership through “sweat equity,” only to have the homes repeatedly snatched away by the banks just before completion. The skills and resilience that Moody developed from this experience came in handy when she was forced to abandon her work as an illustrator, due to macular degeneration, and began creating sculptures. …see the entire article in the print version of Jul/Aug’s Sculpture magazine.
