Here are two drawings she calls settlements. What Kind of settlements are they? One is a farm and one is a town. We could ask what kind of people live in the farm? Or what Kind of people live in the town? Are farms and towns related in some way?
We could also ask ourselves what kind of settlement we come from ourselves? What kind of house or village or estate or trailer or settlement of any kind did we grow up in? Was it large or small? Was it warm or cold? Was there enough room for everybody? Did it look nice or ugly? Were the people in it concerned with how it looked? Were there things of sentimental value that you had to be careful about? Was there freedom to roam about the house or grounds and play as kids or was there certain areas that were no go areas?
Was it rural or urban? What was the culture of the place we grew up in? Was the family culture different than the culture of the surrounding area?
What kind of settlement do we live in now? Do we like it? Would we prefer the settlement we came from originally? Or do we prefer where we live now? We did not choose to live where we were brought up but we did chose to live where we are now? Why did we choose to live where we do now? Would we like to move? Or is it our forever home? Is it too late to move or would we like to move? Where would we like to move? What kind of settlement / location would we like to live in? Even if we can’t move can we envisage the type of settlement we would like to live in and make our own home more like that? What would that look and feel like? How is our home now? Is it jaded? Or fresh? Does it need a makeover? Or maybe even just a dusting and a lick of paint? Could we change the colour of the walls to give us a feeling of something new? Or are we happy with the colour or the walls / doors windows?
Look at the images.
I’d imagine that the farmhouse settlement is indicative of hard work and commitment. What would you imagine the ethos of the farmers is? For example would they believe in sustainability or would they believe in maximizing profits? Do they live in harmony with nature or are they constantly trying to prevent nature from encroaching on their land? What would it be like to live on a farm? Did anyone grow up on a farm? What was it like? Was there freedom or constraint? Or a mixture of both?
What about the town people? There is the stereotype of town people being more liberal. Would people agree that that is true? Or, at least, partially true? Is there an idea that townspeople see more of the world, are exposed to the realities of life in a more in your face way? In this day and age of the internet can we continue to hold these views? Is not everybody exposed to broader horizons now that the internet is available to most people?
Is the division between rural and urban dissolved by the emergence of the internet? Or is there still a difference? And if there is a difference what is that difference? And if there is a homogenization what is that sameness that we all adhere to nowadays?