When It Rains It Shines Page — FLETCHER WILLIAMS III

When It Rains It Shines (WIRIS), 2023

International African American Museum (IAAM)
Charleston, South Carolina

About the Work (6-min read)

When It Rains It Shines is an experimental, gallery-wide installation that transforms the exhibition space into an immersive architectural environment constructed through sculpture, light, sound, reflection, and shadow. The work functions as a monument, sanctuary, and fictional sacred compound shaped by fragments of Southern landscape, vernacular architecture, and personal memory. The title refers to a familiar yet uncanny weather phenomenon: moments when rain falls while the sun remains visible. Sometimes these moments produce rainbows, but even without them the atmosphere feels luminous and strange. I have always been drawn to this contradiction—the coexistence of darkness and brightness, storm and sunlight. The installation draws from that sensation, creating an environment where opposing conditions exist simultaneously.

At the center of the gallery stand three plexiglass structures (each room measures: 15x15x9.5 ft) arranged symmetrically along a central axis. Together they operate as a single monumental form. Visitors move around and between the structures, weaving through the installation and gradually losing their sense of orientation. Because of the symmetry and layered views through plexiglass, mirrors, and metal screens, it can become difficult at times to determine one’s position within the gallery. Between the three structures are two open passageways that function like breezeways connecting the spaces. Above these corridors, lattice ceilings constructed from three trellis panels create overhead structures that recall the feeling of walking through a garden arbor or private courtyard. These transitional spaces introduce moments of pause between rooms and reinforce the architectural logic of the installation, referencing the porch and garden environments common in Southern homes. Moving through these breezeways, visitors pass from one atmosphere to another as if walking between interior rooms and sheltered outdoor spaces within the compound. The structures are built from large colored plexiglass windows framed within architectural supports constructed from plywood forms wrapped with stained lattice strips. This lattice treatment appears throughout my sculptural practice and has become a recurring material in my work. The framing gives the structures a dual character. The stained lattice evokes elements of Southern vernacular architecture—porches, trellises, and garden structures—while the exposed plywood framing and visible bolts retain the sense of assembled construction. The architecture exists somewhere between shelter and structure, domestic space and monument.

Within these frames, colored plexiglass panels shape the atmosphere of each room. Suspended from both sides of the panels are individual ponytails of synthetic hair. The hair retains its artificial coloration but iridescent fibers shifts dramatically as light passes through the plexiglass. These vertical tapered forms of hair evoke Spanish moss and create the sensation of moving through a dense Lowcountry forest. The effect is ghostly and blurs the boundary between landscape and presence. The use of synthetic hair introduces an additional cultural dimension. The ponytails are made from brightly colored hair weave, a material strongly associated with Black Southern culture and everyday life. Hair has long carried complex associations around identity, aesthetics, and expression—natural versus artificial, subdued versus expressive, personal versus public. Within the installation this familiar material becomes landscape and atmosphere, transforming an everyday object into an environmental sculptural form. Above the structures, plexiglass panels form a coffered ceiling that recalls the large decorated rooms found in many Southern homes and interior spaces. At the center of one structure a stack of color-matched milk crates forms a small monument. The crates refer to my uncles, who kept extensive collections of vinyl records stacked in milk crates in their garage where they played and scratched records. In the installation the crates function simultaneously as personal memorial and cultural artifact.

The central structure introduces a different spatial atmosphere. Windows facing outward toward the gallery are orange plexiglass covered with expanded steel mesh, while interior windows are mirrored purple plexiglass. The mesh references security screens commonly installed on neighborhood storefronts and corner stores. Within the installation these screens operate both as protective barriers and stylistic surfaces, transforming utilitarian materials into sculptural elements. Neon lighting traces the base of the structure and slowly shifts color. The neon references the visual language of neighborhood corner stores throughout the South, where bands of flashing colored light often mark storefronts after dark. Within the installation the lighting becomes an architectural element that shapes the atmosphere of the space. The central room also houses the installation’s 11:26 minute soundscape and functions as the atmospheric core of the environment. It is the darkest space within the installation—a stormy, urban forest-like night-scape at the center of the compound. An eleven-minute audio composition loops continuously throughout the gallery, combining recordings of migratory ducks taking flight, frogs, crickets, rain, thunder, deep car bass, the distorted sound of a stick dragged across chain-link and wooden fences, and a shopkeepers bell of a corner store door. The bell acts as a cue that triggers new sounds within the composition, creating a rhythmic sequence that moves through the space. Inside this structure the suspended ponytails are arranged differently than in the other rooms. Rather than hanging loosely like moss, the hair is organized in a strict five-by-three grid. The arrangement recalls the orderly display of hair in beauty supply stores, but within the installation the grid takes on another meaning. The room begins to resemble a chamber containing collected objects—materials gathered, preserved, and placed with intention. The hanging forms suggest talismans or fragments of a ritual, objects kept for safekeeping. The space feels like a private interior belonging to an unknown inhabitant, as if the viewer has entered a room containing the remnants of a ritual practice.

Surrounding the installation is a sixty-foot wall on each side of the gallery made from undulating pickets painted haint blue and installed over mirrored plexiglass. In Southern Black vernacular traditions—particularly in the Lowcountry—haint blue has long been used as a protective color intended to ward off spirits or “haints.” Within the installation the fence forms a protective boundary, transforming the gallery into a guarded compound and reinforcing the sense of the space as a sanctuary. Between the fence and the central structures sit plinths containing oyster shells, pine cones, and palmetto roses. These materials function like offerings placed within the installation. Pine cones recall the yard of my grandmother’s home, where a tall pine tree regularly dropped cones across the ground. Oyster shells reference coastal waterways, marsh ecosystems, food culture, and tabby construction throughout the South. Palmetto roses—handcrafted from palm fronds and commonly sold by young street vendors in Charleston—appear frequently in my work and operate here as symbolic objects within the environment. Four circular benches upholstered in light blue suede are positioned in the corners of the gallery. Their bases are painted the same haint blue as the fence and wrapped in expanded metal mesh, encouraging visitors to remain within the installation and spend time inside the environment. Throughout the space, reflections, shadows, and transparent surfaces create layered views between the rooms. Visitors see through multiple spaces at once—through plexiglass panels, mirrored surfaces, and metal screens. Suspended forms cast elongated shadows across the floor, extending the installation beyond the structures themselves. As viewers move through the gallery, these layers constantly shift.

At its core, the installation functions as an act of preservation. Many of the visual languages referenced within the work—corner store aesthetics, vernacular architecture, regional materials, and neighborhood soundscapes—belong to a Southern cultural landscape that is gradually fading. Through sculpture, architecture, and sound, When It Rains It Shines becomes a life-sized vessel designed to hold and protect fragments of landscape, memory, and cultural practice. It gathers and preserves pieces of personal history, relationships, and lived experience and reassembles them into an environment that can be entered and inhabited. Rather than reproducing existing architecture, the work proposes a speculative form of Southern architecture. Familiar elements—lattice framing, picket fencing, porch-like structures, security screens, and vernacular materials—are reorganized into an imagined environment. I describe this approach as Southern Surrealism: a method of constructing fictional environments from the architecture, materials, and cultural landscapes of the American South.