“this is a House that No One Lives In”

STATEMENT

At times I seem to intuitively single out a project. . . . .

When we moved my mother into her new home next door to us we prepared her old home, where I had grown up, for real estate listing. Before the sale was finalized I photographed it. I really had no thought of what I will ever do with the negatives, perhaps just to hold onto memories.

Many years later I attended a public auction in a nearby town. A box of old envelopes and cards was handed to the auctioneer, he called for a bid but no one responded, for some strange reason I raised my hand and then had second thoughts. Never expecting to find anything of value, I waited till I was home to examine the contents. I carefully opened an envelope dated, Jan 23 1956, which held an old greeting card with a treasure inside.

Falling from the card was a folded sheet of tablet paper that was deteriorating turning brown and brittle. Carefully I unfolded it and discovered a child’s drawing of an unusual dome-shaped house with a red roof, stone driveway, and a lollipop tree in the front yard. On the back, someone had written, “This is a house that no one lives in.”

I have to say I was taken by surprise, although this paper did not reveal a map to a hidden box of cash, it did inspire me to revisit the buried negatives I had taken of the house I grew up in and explore many other houses where no one lives. Thusly, this project reflects places of past experience, growth, and the cycle of life in a place we call a house.