Twisted Preservation Blog

  • One-Night Stand: The Dirt We Leave Behind

    One-Night Stand: The Dirt We Leave Behind

    Not many people know this, but I am a found object sculptor. At a thrift store a few years ago, I found a dirty, soiled, velveteen bunny, all used up and worn. I picked it up and could feel and smell the old sawdust filler. I used it as part of a larger self-portrait sculpture Read more

  • One-Night Stand: The Quiet Voice of Bricks

    One-Night Stand: The Quiet Voice of Bricks

    It’s complicated:  the city of Mobile, the landscape, Oakleigh Villa, and the historic narrative of the people involved.  Just like the live oaks that surround the Villa, it is almost impossible to convey the level of overlapped, interconnected, subplots that define a historic site, but Oakleigh stands out in its complexities.  Perhaps, for me, the Read more

  • One-Night Stand: Traveling With Tomatoes

    One-Night Stand: Traveling With Tomatoes

    The two-lane road my partner Johnny and I were taking seemed really narrow compared to the eight-lane interstates that I am used to. Deep within seemingly endless corn and soybean fields, I could see a family farmhouse peek its gabled apex above the tall corn. Occasionally, I would catch a glimpse of a long driveway Read more

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

    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 his Read more

  • One Night Stand: A Modest Use of Ohio Clay

    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 at Read more

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

    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-between Read more