KEY PORTRAITSANN LIU

ABOUT

1 ESSAY

EXHIBITION

SELF–PORTRAIT

PORTRAIT: BETH

GROUP PORTRAIT

01

02

03

04

05

ABOUT THE PROJECT

A person’s keys can say a lot

about them–where they shop,

if they drive or bike, and how they

organize their life.

Consisting of three parts, my

project combines my interests

in anthropology, interviewing

and graphic design to construct

multiple portraits of the key.

1SELF‐PORTRAIT To share my original source of inspiration, I transported the family’s forty-year old key machine from Kansas to Baltimore.

2GROUP PORTRAITA top-view photograph labeled with each person’s name became part of a large-scale group portrait.

3PORTRAIT : BETHA silkscreen poster series. I created an overlap of key silhouette shapes on top of all the places Beth’s keys go to.

ESSAY01

He walked briskly, and I skipped

to keep up. I stared at the faded

outline of the wallet in his jeans

pocket as we entered the shade

of a covered outdoor hallway. I

looked through the railing at the

courtyard. I smelled fresh-mown

grass. He threw a look back to

make sure I was still following…

ESSAY

I scurried past a blur of red doors, itching my head from the too-tight ponytail my mom had tied that morning.

I was seven years old. My dad’s massive set of keys was clipped to his belt. The keys glittered in the summer light and jangled against each other. He stopped at the last red door and grabbed at his jumble of keys. He fingered one and pulled. A thin chain wire tethered the key to the set, and the chain unspooled with a high, shirring sound. He fit the key in the doorknob and gave a leaning push to the right. The door clicked open.

I followed my dad in and felt a wave a cold air tickle my skin. I shivered as the goose bumps appeared. I squinted to find my dad in the darkness. It was a huge room, as big as a tennis court, with covered windows that had never been opened. I followed him through a maze of old coffee tables, around stacks of chairs with avocado-colored upholstery, and tall laminate dressers with missing drawers and chipped corners. We emerged from the graveyard of furniture to reach a workbench that covered the whole length of a wall.

It was black, splattered with paint, and caked with the dirt and oil of decades. My dad picked me up and plopped me down on a stool. He reached into little boxes and walked from wall to wall grabbing tools. He examined some small metal thing and then threw it back into a different cardboard box. He made his way back to the workbench and reached into his pocket to pull out a key. The key was attached to a plastic key chain that was orange, flat and diamond-shaped.

He set a shiny brass key on the table, flipped on a light switch, and positioned himself in front of the machine.

That was the first time I noticed the squat machine. Bolted down to the working bench, the machine had two parts. The shorter part was metal, plump, and the size of a baby watermelon with a rotating disc on one side. A rubber belt wrapped around the rotating disc and connected the plump part to a rotating wheel on the taller part. I stared at two tall metal knobs sticking out.

My dad dragged my stool closer to him so I could get a better view. He rotated the knobs to open and clamp the keys into the machine. He plugged an oil-stained cord into the wall. Instantly, the dim room whirred to life with a deep, thrumming vibration.

A single bulb lit the workspace. I leaned in as he cut the keys. Metal cut metal with a piercing shriek. I cringed and shot backwards as my ears filled with the grinding sound. Glinting bits of brass metal cascaded off the grinding wheel. I opened my eyes wide. I was not going to miss any part of my dad working on this little machine. I admired the glittery shavings piling up under the knobs. Seconds later, the noise died and the keys were on the workbench: one new key and one old key, side by side.

He turned to ask, “Do you want to help?” I nodded. My dad lifted me to a working height at the bench. He grabbed a wooden box with metal number punches. He took one out, set the number side down on the head of the key, and handed me a hammer. I grabbed the hammer with both hands, lifted

it high, and slammed it down. He pulled the peg away. An edge caught the light, and I saw the outline of our “1.” I grinned. My dad brushed out the rough edges.

We had made a brand-new key for Virginia Inn Motel, Room 101.

1996

I spent my childhood at our family-owned motel. My siblings and I treated the motel like our giant backyard. Cleaning the pool at the Virginia Inn was my first real job. I had scrawled “pool key” on the baby-blue plastic key chain that held the tiny Masterlock keys. On summer mornings, I would walk to the gate of the chainlink fence that wrapped around the motel pool. Our family painted the fence white every other summer. I could see that it was chipping in places, but the paint job was holding up. I surveyed the water as I reached for the weighty chain and padlock. With a turn of the key, I opened it. I threaded the heavy chain back and locked it onto the fence as I swung open the gate. I walked the thirty-feet across the

gray-painted cement patio towards my next lock. It was tiny and rusted. I stuck the key in and yanked open the warped door of the white pool shack. I stepped into the closet-sized space, where the pool pump hummed in the back corner. There were buckets of powdered chlorine strewn about, and my flip-flops ground into the spillover of powdered chlorine on the shack’s floor. I grabbed the clear plastic pH tester from the shelf.

I knelt on the rounded brick edge of the pool and dipped the container until the water hit my forearm. This was my daily ritual. I even liked tossing the test water out—it made my job feel more official. I made the pool work. I made it sparkle and look pretty in the summer sunlight. I liked that I felt like a grown-up with real responsibilities. I liked that I wasn’t just the baby of the family.

I inherited the job from my big brother who had moved onto being my dad’s right-hand man around the motel. It was a nice step up for me, especially since it meant that I didn’t have to plead with my parents for money. I earned it. When I carried those keys, I had responsibilities. I had power. I was excited

Instantly, the dim room whirred to life

with a deep, thrumming vibration.

about growing up. I wanted it to go exactly as planned. I wanted to go to college, fall in love, establish my career, move into a house, get married, and have kids. At age 13, I was an expert in visualizing my perfect home. It would be a renovated two-story home with wood floors, shuttered windows, and a huge wrap-around deck. I even had a small garden where I could plant daffodils. I had the house down, but I couldn’t visualize the man of my dreams.

2005

We entered through the automatic glass door of the local hardware store. A blast of the air conditioning blew my long hair back. I heard my favorite leather sandals flop onto the laminate tile floor. The annoying hum of fluorescent light bulbs filled my ears as we stood at a kiosk in the front of the store. I pushed the dark plastic edge of the kiosk to rotate and see another side—it eeked out an uneven squeak. I wanted to view all of my options. I scanned and sighed as I saw a wall of cheetah and zebra-print blanks. I glanced at my nails. I need to stop picking at my cuticles. I passed over the tie-dye and smiley faces before I finally spotted solid-colored blanks. I chose one red and

one bright blue. I didn’t want the plain silver ones—this was a big deal.

As we waited for the copies to be made, I looked straight into his hazel green eyes. I was telekinetically begging my boyfriend to understand the gravity of this moment and why we were exchanging apartment keys. You WILL understand what this means. PLEASE understand what this means. He made brief eye contact and then went back to fiddling with gold-plated flag pins selling for a dollar on the nearby counter. I was entrusting him with access to my private life, and I was freaked. After one year and a recent rough patch in our relationship, it was fight or flight.

After we paid for the keys, we went to his place. We sat on the sagging futon in his living room. I tipped the little envelope, and the red and blue key slid out onto the coffee table. As he picked up and examined the blue key, he said, “This is a big step.” YEEEESSSSSS, he gets it. I smiled and leaned over to give him a kiss.

He came in and out of my place all of time. We ate “family” dinners with my roommate and hung out on our deck. I kept his key on my key chain. I liked the red key mixed in with the boring silver and brass ones. In the

At age 13, I was an expert in

visualizing my perfect home.

two years we were together, I only used his key a handful of times.

He had a friend he always talked about, but I had never met her. I was jealous, but I didn’t want it to show. I didn’t want to be that crazy girlfriend. Instead, the few times I did come over to his apartment, we arranged it, or I called ahead first. I did not want to see what was there if I showed up out of the blue.

I was good at sidestepping our problems, avoiding conversations that would cause riffs. I remember the afternoon I was forced to deal with the doubts pervading my mind.

My best friend, Erika called out to me from her bedroom. I crossed the living room and leaned on the open doorway.

“Hi,” she said. She sat on floor, folding the arm of a shirt.

“Hey! How’s it going?” I asked.

“Um…” she looked down, “I was downtown on Friday, and I ran into Martha. We started talking and she asked if you and Josh were still dating.”

“Oh, that’s kind of weird.” I stood up straight.

“Yeah, I thought it was kind of random too. She asked because she said that he and Jenny had been dating for a bit in the beginning of the summer.”

I didn’t want to be that crazy girlfriend.

I stared at her.

“Ann,” she said, “I don’t know if it’s true, but I thought you should know.”

All the color drained from my face. I don’t even remember what I said back to her. I just turned and walked into my room. I spent the afternoon by myself. I lost it. I screamed at the top of my lungs while beating the crap out of my mattress. I didn’t know what else to do. Erika came in later in the evening to find me cocooned in my bed in quiet mourning. If I had been brave enough to face the issues in our relationship, I would have gone over unannounced to his place whenever I damn well wanted to. The key had given me access to a truth I couldn’t face.

2009

I like to walk under the shade of trees, close my eyes, and feel the flicker of sun and shade on my eyelids. I was doing this, while linking arms with my friend Raja, through blocks of suburban houses with manicured lawns. I had accepted a spot at the MFA Graphic Design program in Baltimore. I was going to leave San Francisco. Raja and I strolled along catching up with one another.

I said, “Raja, seriously, this guy is twenty-eight and calls his parents his ‘roommates’! What the hell? What do I even say to that?”

She asked, “So what did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything. I just forced a polite smile and shoved some food in my mouth.”

I grinned and continued. “I swear, he said that, and I was pretending to yawn at seven p.m. I was obsessively looking at my watch counting the seconds to when I could get the hell out of there.” I shot her a look of exasperated finality and added, “OHhhh, no wait. I didn’t tell you the best part. He picked me up in his little Subaru to the sounds of Christmas music…in July.”

She laughed and asked, “Wait, like Jingle Bells?”

“No,” I said, “more like Silent Night…classy, right?” We looked at each other and busted out laughing.

We rounded a corner, and I felt the heat of the sun on my black hair. I told her what I knew about my coming life in Baltimore. The small size of the program, the brand new studio, the insanely nice people, and I noticed that I was walking faster and faster. Raja stayed next to me. She has these big, almond-shaped eyes with pristine whites and deep brown, almost black, irises. I noticed she had layers of thick lashes when she turned to me and said, “I’m happy for you.” I slowed down to a stroll. I stared at the cement. Flecks of shiny rocks in the sidewalk reflected the light. The flecks had hypnotized me when I caught the flash of a tiny metal key. Cheap, small and shiny, it

was the kind of key that would open up a diary lock and not much else. I did not stop, I did not pick it up, and I did not point it out to Raja. Just as quickly as I looked down, I looked back up and kept walking.

2011

I called him the morning of his flight. He asked, “What should I wear?” I could tell he was nervous. In March, I exhibited my designs in the gallery of my school as I worked to finish my Graphic Design MFA program in Baltimore. My dad had flown from Kansas to help me with the show.

I met him in my gallery space. He pulled out a giant box filled with all the ephemera of the back room in the motel lobby. I lifted back a flap and rummaged through. I could feel the metal dust and dirt build up on my hands. The scent of metallic residue entered my nose.

My dad took out all the cardboard boxes, locks and doorknobs he had brought. He set them out on our workbench. I untied the clear cellophane bags and dumped the contents out onto the workbench so we could see everything at once. I found groups of key chains with scratch pieces of paper taped around their heads. He had labeled them in his scrawl: “Unknown Key 6-6-08,”

“Motel Storage Rm 6-4-08,” and “Lobby Door for Apt.” He stood across from me and passed me the room keys. Room 108 was the first to go up on the pegboard. We hung them up until 101-116 were lined up across the peg board.

My dad called out to me. I looked up. He lifted a set of keys with a squarish, dirty orange key chain. I laughed. I could see the geometric head of a key with a squat cylinder body. He had found the keys to the motel’s vending machine…

In the summertime, my sister, brother, and I would spend entire days at the pool. Growing up, most little kids go to the public pool—we went to the motel pool. We were good at occupying ourselves, racing each other from one end to the other, diving for pennies and playing Marco Polo, but by mid-afternoon we would be starving. The three of us would run barefoot across the grassy courtyard and through a strip of cement sidewalk blazing from the summer sun. The door to the motel lobby was heavy. My big sister had to use her whole body to pull it open enough to get the three of us through. We’d stand there barefoot on the cold brown ceramic tile. We were still in our swimsuits, dripping from the pool, and

shivering from the blasting air conditioner. I looked to my sister to start. She played nice, starting with a “Can we please?” and a smile. My brother repeated, “Please, please, please,” like a broken record. I would add in a well-timed, emphatic nod and use my most convincing puppy eyes.

My dad was always the pushover. He would listen to one round of pleading and then go into the backroom of the lobby to retrieve the vending-machine keys. But my mom really made us work for it. She would cross her arms and shake her head from side to side and say, “You guys just ate lunch. You don’t need a snack.”

We would let out a collective whine. My sister would protest and say, “Nuh uh, it’s been two hours, and I didn’t finish my sandwich and neither did Ann.” I nodded in agreement. My mom made us plead and wait, but she too would eventually give in and hand over the keys to my sister.

“OHhhh, no wait. I didn’t tell you the

best part. He picked me up in his little

Subaru to the sounds of Christmas

music…in July.”

We scrambled like hungry puppies to get to the vending machine. My sister would put in the key, rotate it a half turn to the right, and a skinny 6-inch metal plate popped forward. She rotated the plate a half turn to the right, and it became the door handle to swing open the glass front of the vending machine. We were only allowed one snack each. I always snagged a bag of crunchy Cheetos. The fluorescent orange powder would coat my whole hand as I reached in for my first knobby chip…

Seeing my dad hold up that keychain was like being eight years old again, begging my parents for a treat. I laughed to myself as I hung up the vending-machine key chain onto the pegboard.

On opening night, my dad and I looked at each other.

“You ready?” I asked. I was already sweating.

He gave a nod, and I stepped on the switch of the extension cord. People milled about the gallery, and the noise of our engine turned a few heads. A cup of shiny brass keys sat within easy reach of my dad. He picked up a key and clamped it into the machine. He adjusted the key’s placement.

My dad had neatly combed his hair. His striped white dress shirt looked crisp underneath his dark gray sweater vest. I worried that he would get too hot in the gallery. I scanned the area to find his water bottle in case he needed a drink, and suddenly a screeeeee echoed through the gallery. I jumped. I can’t believe the metal cutting still scares me even after all of these

years. I looked across the gallery and could see other people trying to figure out what was causing the sound. He cut about a quarter of the key before he looked up at me. He shouted,

“It’s still really loud!” I nodded. I watched the metal shavings float down into a soft pile onto the white workbench. The screeching finally stopped and he unclamped the key. He passed it over to me to finish. I picked up a brush and worked to smooth out the freshly cut edges. I grabbed a baby envelope, dropped in the key, and handed it to the first person in line.

“So what does this open?” she asked.

I replied, “Room 116 at the Virginia Inn in Lawrence, Kansas.”

“No kidding, for real?!” she asked.

I said, “No kidding.”

She brought in the key to her chest as she voiced her thank you’s to my dad and me. My dad gave a kind smile and nod in return. As we prepared to make the next key, I looked over at the key machine. The bright brass key sat next to the original, rusted key—two working keys, side by side, one old and one young.

EXHIBITION02

THE EXHIBITION

In March 2011, Key Portraits exhibited at MICA.

The project showcases three

different perspectives on the

key. For the show opening, my

dad and I worked the key-cutting

machine transported from the

family run motel in Kansas.

SELF-PORTRAIT03

SELF-PORTRAIT

Self–Portrait presents my unique

personal history growing up at

the family run motel in Kansas.

My admiration of the key began

at the motel and highlights the

developing relationship between

my dad and me.

I designed a canvas banner incorporating old family photos and installed the original key machine from the motel for the project exhibition.

For the opening of the show, my dad and I made keys on the motel’s old key machine.

91 8 2EST.

lobby of the motel.

WE LIVED BEHIND THE LOBBY.

MY FIRST JOB WAS FOLDING SHEETS AND TOWELS.

THE MOTEL WAS OUR GIANT BACKYARD.

MY FAVORITE MEMORY IS MAKING MOTEL

KEYS WITH MY DAD.

I LEARNED TO WALK AT THE MOTEL.

MY MOM WAS THE FRONT DESK MANAGER

AND ACCOUNTANT.

THE BUSINESS WAS A BIG PART OF OUR LIVES.

We lived in an apartment attached to the lobby for the first year of my life. This photo was taken the day before I was born.

My parents moved the family from Los Angeles to Kansas because of the motel.

My parents never shipped us off to summer camp or hired a baby sitter. We were always on the motel grounds, doing our homework in the apartment, riding our bikes in the hallways and swimming in the pool all summer long.

In addition to being the owners my parents doubled as the managers, accountants and housekeepers. All of the kids also helped in the day to day operations of the motel.

On any given day you could find one of the Lius out cleaning the pool, doing the laundry or fixing broken furniture.

PORTRAIT: BETH04

To reinforce the idea of key

portraits, I used one person to

highlight how a set of keys can

be an index to the owner’s life.

PORTRAIT : BETH

I photographed all the places Beth’s keys unlock. I silkscreened a digital print of each location with its respective key shape.

The following is each print paired with her description of the location.

Living in Baltimore I have three locks on each door. I have a front door and a back door.

So, to get in the front door, this key lets me into the building.

If I want to go in the back entrance, one of these keys lets me into the gate.

I don’t actually lock the gate, but I want to keep it on hand in case someone else locks the gate.

And then I have a back door that I primarily use. This is the knob and this is the bolt.

If you notice that if it’s big and round, it’s for the knob. And if it’s for the bolt, it’s small.

I have a key to my storage unit downstairs in the basement in my house.

I don’t have on here right now my key to my bike lock, or my car key because the loop holder thing broke off.

This key lets me into the bolt lock on my door, and this lets me into the knob on my door. So, that’s the front entrance.

One of these goes to the basement, and the other ones go to the building next door, which is also owned by the management company.

They use our laundry, so they need to get into our building, but I’m not sure why I would need to get into their building.

I think this goes to the back porch door just off my bedroom on the top floor. I’m pretty sure that door is stuck—I haven’t tried to open it in a long time.

I have a key to my file cabinet here at studio.

That’s pretty funny. I just noticed that with the lime green and orange all of my favorite colors are here too. My keys color coordinate with my desk.

Using the shape of each of the keyholes Beth’s keys goes into, I created a pattern to silkscreen over a photograph of her apartment building.

Using the silhouette of each of her keys, I printed each one on top of the other. For each key color, I chose to use the dominant color scheme of the original key. Eight different keys were used in the print.

GROUP PORTRAIT05

GROUP PORTRAIT

I wanted to document a variety

of people and keys. For one year,

I shot top view photographs of

people’s keys. Each photo was

labeled with the owner’s name.

During shoots, stories began to

emerge: cupcakes in Caracas, a

bike lock key with no bike and no

key and why one sorority should

actually be called a fraternity.

You’re going to love this. The cupcake is from these two designers in Caracas.

You should see my car keys.

My Club key. People make fun of me because I put it on in an area that’s probably really safe.

My mother always teases me, “Who would want to steal your car?” I just like the key.

When I went to Italy, I had gotten all these beautiful leather bags as gifts for all the women in my family.

For myself, I bought this beautiful leather rose from a female leather artisan shop owner in the Campo di Fiore neighborhood of Rome.

Back when I lived in Seattle, I worked on this fishing boat with this cute old Japanese man.

He tied this red knot through my house key, so when we got back from the docks at night, I could still find it in the dark.

I just lost my keys. My roommates from Beijing had a picnic in Central Park and I was rummaging through my bag and it must have fallen out.

This is the only thing I had in my house. I never use this compass. Actually, I don’t even know what way is North from here.

This is the boat key. My boyfriend has a boat and I don’t own it, but I think that I own it—so I drive it.

This is a floatie, so if this key falls in, it’ll float.

There is only one mail key so we share it. The ribbon is just something we had.

I don’t have a lot on here. That was a gift, so I just put it on there.

I have a bunch of keys on there that I don’t even use anymore.

They’re pretty colorful too.

This is my business truck, I do three markets a week. I go to Catonsville, Bel-Air and then I have my own retail store that is open everyday and we have our farm.

We have lots of keys, but I only have these with me right now.

Yeah, there are 2 engraved circles. One is small and flat, that one has my initials.

My group of high school friends and I rotated buying each other those for when we each turned 16. My friend Melissa got it for me, so it’s dated with my 16th birthday—10.17.2001.

I bought the key chain my junior year of college along with several sorority sisters.

Chi Omega was actually the first sorority established. It’s actually considered a “fraternity” as a result and is the largest women’s organization in the country if you don’t count the Girl Scouts.

I will likely continue to use the key chain until it starts falling apart is too dirty to touch. The key chain is red and gold, Chi Omega’s colors formally called “cardinal and straw.”

This is all I have.

I painted this key, well, I used a permanent marker and colored it in.

This key chain used to be black, but I’ve used it so much, it’s rubbed off.

This is my file cabinet key, my house key, and I can never tell, but these are my parents keys and my sister’s house keys because apparently I am the key master.

Every time someone loses a key or gets locked out of their house, I’m the one that bails them out.

This set over here is to my Brother-in-law’s apartment for when I have to feed his cat—it has his address on it so I don’t forget.

He’ll call me at noon and say “Hey, can you drop by today and feed Arthur at five?” If I don’t have his keys on me, I’m S-O-L.

This is my thumb drive. It’s in a shape of a key, and I like it because it’s so flat.

I need my keys to be small and flat so they can fit into my pocket.

Yeah, the weird looking one is the key for my drum.

I just found it on the street.

The Mississippi State key tag is the oldest thing on my key chain. I’ve had it for over four years now.

I didn’t like the generic Microsoft blue color of my old carabiner. Now I have this little red wire key chain.

The oldest thing on my key chain are all the key rings. They’re all from the first time I ever had a key chain. It was the ticket to my freshman-year high school sweetheart dance.

My keys are boring. There’s nothing special about them.

I really like my little monsters. I don’t have a lot of keys. This one lets me into my apartment.

It’s pepperspray.

My sister’s husband gave it to me. It was really nice of him to think of my safety, but all I kept thinking was, “Thanks for making it look like I carry around a sex toy!”

The school has a shuttle to the rental car place, but it was over an hour late.

I don’t even know what kind of car it is. I just got in it and drove.

I know where all of these keys go to. Wait...

So, what does it say about me that I have a bottle opener on my key chain?

I drive a Honda and the key chain is my husband’s that I use.

Wait, is this safe? I always ask my parents to get these fish key chains when they go back to Taiwan.

When I was at their house over the summer, I found this one. The blue ones are the prettiest.

YEAH, Texas shaped bottle opener on Texas Independence Day.

We just got a second car and all of these go to offices at different places I teach.

This one goes to this office.

There’s like 20 key scan cards on here and I only use the Wegmans card. The rest go to places I don’t even live near anymore.

I should go through and take out the ones I don’t use anymore.

My ex-best friend’s house key.

Every time I have to go to the doctor and they weigh me out, I have to remove the keys.

Sometimes I forget about the keys and they say, “Oh, you gain some weight” and I think it’s the keys.

I used to have a lot of other stuff on here, but I’ve done some editing since you last saw them.

I have three different pet cards, my grocery card, and a Smart Key.

The Smart Key is so you can change the lock on the house. We can change the code to the lock, just slip in a new key and change it without having to change all the locks in the door.

My bike got stolen early last year but this is my bike lock key. So, there’s no bike, there’s no lock, but I still have the key.

I’m the grounds keeper at the Church, and someone gave me these keys.

The butterfly was on there, I just left it.

I have to make sure I have it on me when I need to drive because I broke off the little piece that lets me attach it to my keys.

It’s not really a big deal though, because I don’t drive that often.

KEY PORTRAITS ANN LIUannmaryliu@gmail.com

TYPOGRAPHYUnivers family, designed by Adrian Frutiger, 1957TitilliumText22L family, designed by the Accademia di Belle Arti Urbino, 2009

Key Portraits is a MICA Graphic Design MFA 2011 thesis project. Visit thesis2011.micadesign.org/liu for more information.