Held in a former army barracks, my installation for the Governor's Island Art Fair returned some sense of habitation to the abandoned bedroom. I added curtains, wallpaper, framed portraits, a shrine to football, a place to lay down and a shotgun over the door.

The hand-painted wallpaper traces the development of American weapons and uniforms from the Revolutionary period to the recent past; such things constitute a significant amount of our national creative output over the years. On the wall are framed drawings of G.I. Joe and Cobra cartoon characters posed like high school portraits. The quilt rumpled on the floor is an opportunity to curl up in what looks like an Ellsworth Kelly painting. Kelly served in the army before his painting career took off.

Thinking about childhood and adolescent dreams of heroism, and how those ideas are transmitted through things like cartoons, movies, action figures and even bedroom decor, along with imagining the experience of what working on an army/ coast guard base might feel like is what led to this installation.