One-Night Stand: Poetry of Four Pears

I locked the door to my stone-walled, tower office. The office was accessed through a lone, tight set of spiral stairs.  It was a beautiful space, but at times I felt like I was sitting in the middle of a big bullseye target.   I rushed over to a corner of my large office and lay […]

One-Night Stand: A Complicated Tango

As we left the Overground transport train and entered into the Hackney area of London, I became utterly confused. Spending the last decade in New York City, I was used to a regular grid and quickly gaining my orientation within the urban landscape.  Not so easy in London.  I followed my friends, who had visitedContinue reading “One-Night Stand: A Complicated Tango”

One-night Stand: It’s All In How You Use It

Have you ever made plans to meet someone, and then when you meet them, they don’t look, sound, or relate in the manner that you had expected? This happened to me when I finally met my adult self, and I suspect a similar thing happened to Wharton Esherick when he slowly became acquainted with hisContinue reading “One-night Stand: It’s All In How You Use It”

One Night Stand: A Modest Use of Ohio Clay

On August 14th, 1950, my great-grandfather John Guzzo, an unskilled brick maker at the Claycraft Brick Manufacturing Plant, was walking home from work, as he did every day for well over 40 years.  When my mom was visiting the small town of Shawnee, Ohio to spend time with her grandparents, she used to wait atContinue reading “One Night Stand: A Modest Use of Ohio Clay”

One Night Stand: News from the original “middle of nowhere”

Driving East on Genesee Road in Western New York State, you pass a lot of large warehouses and truck distribution centers spotted among the residential houses and farms.  There were a number of 18-wheelers rushing by in both directions and, although not exactly rural, the Hull Family House and Farmstead is situated in an in-betweenContinue reading “One Night Stand: News from the original “middle of nowhere””

One Night Stand: Leaving Crumbs Behind

Gadsby’s Tavern & Hotel Alexandria, Virginia March 16th, 2016 NOTE: This is part of a long-term series of “One Night Stand” ™ blog posts that will document overnight stays in actual historic house museums.  I want to understand these sites as more than merely decorative arts galleries – I am interested in them as places ofContinue reading “One Night Stand: Leaving Crumbs Behind”

Narratives of Disappearance

Photographs used for educational and non-commercial purposes only. “The history of the work of the dead is a history of how they dwell among us – individually and communally. It is a history of how we imagine them to be, how they give meaning to our lives, how they structure public spaces, politics, and time.Continue reading “Narratives of Disappearance”

The Beauty of the Undefined

Photographs used for educational and non-commercial purposes only. “I can’t paint what I dream because I paint memorandum of my dreams…I have so many dreams about angels.  I paint imitations of angels just as I imagined them.  I do not paint an angel, because they come from the throne of God.  We can get theContinue reading “The Beauty of the Undefined”

The frustration with professionalism, and why not to listen to me

“Faced with any new object, reason asks, ‘in which of its earlier categories the new object belongs? In which ready-to-open drawer shall we put it?  With which ready-made garments shall we invest it?’  Because, of course, a ready made garment suffices to clothe a poor rationalist.” The Poetics of space, Gaston Bachelard, from Henri- LouisContinue reading “The frustration with professionalism, and why not to listen to me”

Preservation, Demolition, Destruction, Decay and Death

Photographs used for educational and non-commercial purposes only.   This is a new thread of investigation – In what ways does “preservation” help us avoid death?  How does the purity of our preservation efforts directly reflect personal feelings of loss?  Our world is in a continuous process of demolition (Pruitt Igo Housing demolition), destruction (ISISContinue reading “Preservation, Demolition, Destruction, Decay and Death”