Widow’s Walk (1996) was installed on an existing observation deck off of Washington’s Landing, an island in the Allegheny River just north of Pittsburgh’s downtown area. It was one of eight installations on the island set up in conjunction with The Boat as Metaphor, part of The Three Rivers Arts Festival that year. On the deck boards, two-hundred stenciled names refer to the steam-powered towboats and packets that navigated the Allegheny during the 19th century. A four-channel soundtrack layers the voices of six women describing the boats, their size, function, years of service, owners and captains. 

Thus, Widow’s Walk juxtaposes two related positions: men traveling the rivers and oceans, and women waiting for their return. Both participate in a larger division of labor between movement and stasis, public and private, commercial and domestic life. On the walkway leading up to the deck, every other board is stenciled with a synonym for waiting, thirteen in all, followed by a quote from the German cultural critic, Siegfried Krackauer: “Perhaps the only remaining attitude is that of waiting. One waits and one’s waiting is a hesitant openness….”