Art Attack Central

Fixing stuff, myself included…


Abandoned House

abondonedIt’s a good thing I’ve always had a love affair of sorts with abandoned houses. When I arrived on the third floor this morning, I noticed the vines which are supposed to be on the outside are thriving once again on the inside. Really the vines should not even be left to their own devices on the outside, but they have a strangle hold on the house.

A love affair with abandoned houses?

A better way might be to say a fascination with abandoned houses. When I lived on the Eastern shore in the seventies they were prolific. Houses built by farmers in the twenties, left in the rush for the cities, or left in later years for a new modern house. On route 13 which winds across and down the Delmarva Peninsula, you can still find a few of the weathered gray structures still standing. Most have been bulldozed and reclaimed as farmland, those left have already been stripped of their precious mantels, doorknobs and locks. In the rush to wherever, or perhaps because they were labeled as old and dated, people left behind the most amazing things. Not just the houses themselves, but things like old phonographs (the kind with the horn), a player piano and an old wood stove with chrome and porcelain details.

How do you know they left these behind?

My friend Gary and I used to go exploring/hunting in these forgotten homes. It was dangerous, not because of the human factor, although that was not to be counted out entirely. Many of the houses had been empty for thirty years and more; windows, doors were broken or missing, and the roofs had been leaking for years. Wallpaper sagged, or was in a heap on the floor revealing brown and orange water stains on the once white plaster. The ghost houses themselves were not safe to be moving about in, but we did nevertheless. Dodging the ever watchful new owners.. the birds and snakes.

Lots of snakes?

No, mostly it was just angry birds to contend with. We encountered the snakes when we decided to salvage the old player piano. We arrived around dusk with what we deemed necessary for the partial dismantling operation. After removing the top lid we discovered a number of snake skin sheds. We pushed the piano out into the middle of the room and in the fading light saw three silvery snakes moving rapidly towards the a hole near the front entrance. We did not salvage the piano.

Where’s the love affair?

The aging weathered wood, the crumbling plaster, the vines knowing no difference between inside and out, all these things I found a certain beauty in. Besides exploring them I spent much time drawing and photographing these houses both inside and out.

“People only see what they are prepared to see.”

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

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