JUDY WOODRUFF: What objects
give meaning to our lives?

KPBS reporter Maya Trabulsi
talked to an artist who
gathered things special
to San Diego residents

and preserved them
as 3-D laser art.

It is part of our arts and
culture series, Canvas.

MAYA TRABULSI: When you walk
into the New Americans Museum,
you may wonder where the

art exhibit is.

But if you look closer,
you will see a pen knife,
a bell, a figurine.

And if you look even closer,
you will learn about the stories
embedded in these objects.

KERIANNE QUICK, Artist, New
Americans Museum: Each one of
these individual stories come

together as a
chorus, in my view.

MAYA TRABULSI: Kerianne Quick
is the artist in residence here.

KERIANNE QUICK: When you
start with something specific,
something completely surprising

can unfold, something you never
would have access to otherwise.

MAYA TRABULSI: Something
specific like a typewriter?

KERIANNE QUICK: Like a
typewriter, yes, yes.

MAYA TRABULSI: For her exhibit
called A Portrait of People in
Motion, she spent over a year

gathering treasured objects
from San Diego residents.

But, more importantly,
she gathered the stories
that accompany them.

KERIANNE QUICK: If we can feel
some of that emotion about
what it's like to try to figure

out how to live in a new place,
then maybe we can empathize
with those who are experiencing

the most extreme version
of that discomfort.

MAYA TRABULSI: The item is
scanned, and then 3-D printed or
laser engraved to leave behind

what Kerianne calls a ghost,
transparent, with faint
detail, yet still teeming with

the story of how it
came to San Diego.

KERIANNE QUICK: The
story is the art piece.

The objects that are
represented here, they're just
a way in to those stories.

And, yes, the objects
are transparent.

And that's on purpose.

MAYA TRABULSI: Some objects
are made of clear resin.

Others are acrylic.

KERIANNE QUICK: The light
as it projects through the
laser-engraved surface,
it creates a shadow

where the writing
almost becomes legible.

MAYA TRABULSI: At first glance,
they are hard to see against
the stark white wooden furniture

designed to look like
furniture in a home.

But looking closer is exactly
what Kerianne wants you to do.

KERIANNE QUICK: And when they
look closer, and they wonder
what that -- what the thing

is that they're looking at,
they are given access to
the story that is behind it.

MAYA TRABULSI: Kerianne
also recorded the oral
histories of each piece.

They can be played by dialing
a number on your phone and
then the corresponding number

of the item.

MAN: My object is a jacket
that, when I was in Korea during
the Korean War, this was a

jacket that I, in effect,
stole from the Army.

WOMAN: From 1971 to now, we
have lived many places, and
the recipes have gone with me.

WOMAN: My object is a
little tiny Inuit figure
that was given to me in
1945 by my first boyfriend,

who was stationed
in the Aleutians.

WOMAN: And I think just seeing
it makes me feel at home,
because I grew up seeing it.

KERIANNE QUICK: The crux of
what I'm trying to do here is to
help people, people in general,

feel something that might
make them treat their
neighbor a little bit better.

MAYA TRABULSI: And as the sound
of plane engines roar above
this little museum under the San

Diego flight path, it offers
a subtle reminder that we
are all people in motion.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm
Maya Trabulsi in San Diego.