Spirit House

2021, paper wasp nests, magnolia branches, and acrylic paint. Dimensions variable. Collection of the Figge Art Museum.

The Field Museum in Chicago is one of Kabel's favorite places in the world. There is something magical about encountering art and artifacts from across time and space gathered in one place, allowing us to compare civilizations. Several years ago, she noticed that seemingly unrelated cultures—Chinese, Polynesian, and Egyptian—all created miniature houses for souls to inhabit after death. The Chinese made lovely green-glazed ceramic homes with courtyards, pigs, and bowls of fruit; the Polynesians wove theirs from rattan; and the Egyptians crafted red clay structures with rooftop sleeping rooms.

Spirit House is Kabel's personal interpretation of the ancient Egyptian spirit house tradition. It is a model of her 1913 bungalow constructed from paper wasp nests built on the home over five years. Each year the wasps came, and each year her husband knocked the nests down. Kabel felt this action was both unnecessary and unkind—the wasps were simply making their homes and raising their young when their lives were suddenly upended, without ever understanding why or how it happened. This realization led Kabel to reframe her understanding of home as something that could also be taken away without logic or explanation. She constructed this model using paper from the wasp nests and suspended it from a magnolia branch, creating a meditation on fragility, dwelling, and the precariousness of belonging.