When UVA Library’s new Artist-in-Residence Somé Louis was a child, she would travel with her family to her ancestral home in the Caribbean, which she describes as “a blank canvas for childhood imagination.” Louis, now a conceptual artist living in Charlottesville, returns to that family home through her artwork, which incorporates themes of memory, identity, and rituals of mundane occurrences through embroidery, minimalist drawings, and performance on video.
Louis, who holds a B.A. in Studio Art and Art History from Wellesley College, has also completed residencies at New City Arts, Second Street Gallery, and McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville. She is now the 2026 Art in Library Spaces Community Artist-in-Residence, a program of UVA Library’s Division for Culture, Engagement, and Community and supported by the Aric Lasher Art Fund. The residency is a dedicated way to present work by community artists and includes a $2,000 honorarium and full access to UVA Library’s collections, space, and resources. Each artist resident creates a body of work connected to the Library’s collection.
Louis’ dual installation, “Home (poetry),” and “Untitled (Storybook Gestures) …” is now on display on two walls in the northwest corner of the third floor of Shannon Library. The work is mixed media and includes embroidered hoops and fabric, vintage papers, and inspiration from late 19th and early 20th century children’s book illustrations, all found in UVA Library’s collections. Louis will give an artist’s talk about her creative process on Thursday, October 1 at 5:30 p.m. in Shannon Library’s Seminar Room 330.
We spoke with Louis about her work in anticipation of that event. Our conversation is below.
Q. Can you talk about how the idea of childhood magic and exploration influences your work? What specific memories from your childhood have stayed with you and come out through your art?
A. For this project (and in my work in general), I was particularly interested in childhood memories of unstructured summer days, especially in our old family home in the Caribbean. This family home is now a memory, and was already quite old when we were children, but it remains a fixture in my adult memories as a blank canvas for childhood imagination. When we were little, we would visit each summer, and spend the days creating little imaginary worlds, in and around the home. These worlds would be supplemented by the books we carried with us (especially ones with fantastic illustrations), as well as the aging household objects we could find to build forts or use as props for our games (tablecloths, cups, little pieces of ephemera).
I think the landscape of the home is still present in some of the things that I collect, and certainly in my creative practice, in the objects/materials I use, in the act of thinking/ process/imagining in long open hours of embroidery time, and in the little spaces I create during studio and exhibition.
Q. Which of the materials in your exhibition are preowned? Where did they come from?
Many of the materials used in my work and in this exhibition are preowned/secondhand. In this exhibition, the embroidery hoops and fabric, as well as the paper used for wall florals are secondhand. They are sourced from the local thrift!
Q. What are some of the historical illustrations that influence your work and why?
For this exhibition, I was very interested in the historical illustrations of:
- Henriette Willebeek le Mair in “Little Songs of Long Ago,”
- Margaret Ely Webb in “Aldine Readers Book Two,”
- and Kate Greenaway in “Under the Window: Pictures & Rhymes for Children,”
among others. These illustrations, especially those by le Mair, were first of interest to me as they appeared closest to the illustration styles in my hazy memories of childhood books that inspired imagination. However, when making work for this exhibition, I found that I was especially drawn to small details related to the design of the illustration pages. I was drawn to le Mair’s circle and oval cartouches, the illuminating white paint in the little dresses of Greenaway’s cover illustrations, and the small, simple, fairy figures sometimes found in Webb’s “Aldine” illustrations.
I was also heavily interested in the appearance of florals and garden motifs that were consistent throughout so many of these illustrated works. There was so much to think about when making work and looking at the collection, and I found that these little design elements were some of the most significant ways that the illustrations influenced my making.
Q. What do you hope viewers take away from your exhibition?
There are so many ways of interacting with artwork, but I always really enjoy hearing about cherished childhood/mundane/simple memories that arise when looking at my work! I think that my own work is pretty interpretive in relation to the illustrations that I enjoy, and perhaps it would be lovely if this exhibition might encourage viewers to consider their own memories, making simple things, and especially utilizing the Library collection to explore their own memories or nostalgia!
Q. Anything else you’d like to add?
Working with the Library collection has been an enjoyable experience, and certainly a new way to consider engaging with memories, especially those of childhood that have been made hazy by time. I think that this is the very beginning/very early stage of hopefully further exploration/expansion of this subject!
Louis’ artist’s talk is on Thursday, October 1, at 5:30 p.m. in Shannon Library’s Seminar Room 330. The talk is free and open to the public; registration is required.
