Tilghman(‘s) Island/DuPont Circle
I have spent the last two days on Tilghman Island shooting more artifacts and a bunch of really interesting artwork. It is a remarkable place, and I just love working there. The above shot is a detail from a very old linen map of oyster beds near the island. It was literally falling apart but is an amazing remnant of work life on the bay.
After 6 months of really hard work, it looks like Peter has found a job. It will be a few weeks before he starts, but we are so happy for him. I took a quick shower after the drive back to DC from Tilghman’s and we went right out to buy him some work clothes. There is a GAP practically next to Nando’s so we ate some chicken and then went to Larry’s for ice cream. It is a wonderful place on Connecticut Avenue. I had lavender, which was probably the most interesting flavor I’ve had in years.
Home tomorrow.
Peta Pixel/Peabody Essex Museum/Farnham’s
There was a very nice mention of the suitcases project on PetaPixel yesterday. Thanks DL Cade!
Cristine, our friend Kate, and I drove to Salem today to see the J M W Turner exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum. It is amazing and worth the trip. No photos allowed in the gallery, but it is a very cool museum. Note the early Airstream trailer (lower right) that is part of the mid century LA exhibit.
We then drove up to Essex to eat some clams at Farnham’s. For those of you who follow this site, I have posted about this place before.
The upcoming 10 days are going to be very hectic for me, so please be patient if I don’t respond directly to email. I’ll do my best.
Willard Suitcases / Agnes M / White Star Britannic
Peggy and I had a very productive day shooting the suitcases yesterday. We are continuing to make great progress, and still have hopes that we can finish all the cases by the end of the year.
I have always been fascinated by the labels that are on some of the cases and this one is particularly interesting. The White Star Line has an interesting history and even though there is a bit of confusion about the name of the ship here, I am quite sure it is the Britannic. (On the label it seems to say Britanica, but when I did an online search only Britannic came up.) The “Sailing from” line is very difficult to read, but it looks to be Qu….town (Queenstown?) and the sailing date is “Sep 28”. The port of landing (such a quaint phrase) is definitely New York. You can see the U.S. Customs sticker in the shot below.
So, as usual, lots of questions come up and I am hoping that anyone who knows about ocean liners and travel might have some suggestions about what route this might have been for Agnes M. If any of you want to do some serious work on this, I can email a high res file of the label.
Karen Miller, my friend who is using the cases and their owners as a basis for writing amazing poems was in Rotterdam with us yesterday, and she and I realized that we were both passengers on the SS United States in 1957. She was on her way to the UK to live there for a year with her family, and I was returning from some months in Europe and the UK with my family. I posted about that trip here.
Iris / Bleeding Hearts
When I left Short Hills, NJ this morning it was clear and breezy with very low humidity. The drive home was uneventful, but as I got into Massachusetts it had become mostly cloudy. I didn’t hit any rain until about 5 minutes from home. The light was beautiful and many of the flowers that Cristine has planted over the years are in full bloom.
I especially like these bleeding hearts.
Pingry and Travel
I just spent the past four days shooting a project at the Pingry School in New Jersey. The days were very full, the work was great and since it was with my friends at the Herson Group, we enjoyed ourselves tremendously. / I have been photographing Peter Carroll jumping almost as long as I have known him (which is a very long time). And while I was living in Ithaca, I spent a lot of time photographing portable toilets, and had a very one sided postcard correspondence with The Portable Sanitation Association. These toilets were on the high end of comfort and I believe they were even air conditioned.
The spring is much further (farther?) along in New Jersey than it is in Massachusetts, and these dogwood blossoms were at their peak. Ours don’t even have leaves yet.
As I was driving through Springfield, the sky got really interesting and I pulled into a scenic area on the 91 to check out this beautiful rainbow. Not a great shot, but a lot of cars had stopped to watch it and there was a nice little collection of people taking in the scene. / Enjoy the weekend everyone.
Fenway
Yesterday I got a call from my friend Scott Chasan-Taber offering me a ticket to today’s Sox game. We drove in this morning and took the Green Line from Woodland to Fenway. It was a beautiful day for baseball; cool, breezy, and at times even a bit warm in the sun. The Sox lost to Oakland 3-2 in 10 innings, but it didn’t really matter so much to me. It was just lovely to be in the park watching baseball. Thanks Scott! / Wishing you all a great week. Cheers
Sebastian Lindstrom
I have always liked driving people to airports, train stations, and bus stations. I make it clear to friends that if my schedule allows, I am in. One of Cristine’s students is (was) Sebastian Lindstrom. He is leaving Amherst for good and we will miss him. It is always bittersweet to get to know the students, as we know they will eventually be gone. He is already doing interesting work with his organization What Took You So Long. Here he is standing in front of the MegaBus. Gone but not forgotten. Safe travels Sebastian.
Travels
It has been a while since I’ve posted. I think it was a combination of having the Kickstarter campaign wrap up and feeling a bit of “Kharma Congestion” as my friend Alex would call it.
Last week Cris and I drove to Toronto. She was presenting at the annual CIES Conference and I was tagging along for fun.
We went out to an amazing South Indian restaurant called Udupi Palace and it was the best. Cristine’s favorite food in the world is a paper masala dosa, and Udupi has the best ones she has ever found outside of India. After we ate, we were waiting for a streetcar to take us back downtown and I saw this window display. Love the hands.
I was very excited to get back to Toronto to be able to see the Thompson Collection of Cornelius Krieghoff paintings at The Art Gallery of Ontario. Here is a previous post about my relation to him. The museum has a ton of his work. I was really jazzed to see so many in one place.
This is a detail from one of his paintings that is a sort of self-portrait of his family (in the sleigh).
I especially liked reading the bottom paragraph here. It helps to explain where I might get my own disregard for authority.
After Toronto, we drove to Pittsburgh for another of Cris’ conferences. On the way we had to stop at Niagara Falls. I hadn’t been on the Canadian side for years, and it was a beautiful day. (Unlike many, I also really like the American side.)
In Toronto we scored some of these great Roots mittens. And I bought this hat in the Soviet Union in 1982, a very long time ago.
Next stop was Eddie’s Footlong Hot Dogs on the Lake Road just outside of Meadville. I grew up eating these and was thrilled to see that they had opened for the season just a few days earlier. I rarely post pictures of food, but oh man are these good. Too cold to eat at the picnic tables, but two with the works hit the spot.
We got to Pittsburgh in time for a nice walk along the River. It is a fantastic city that somehow remains largely intact. The downtown is full of beautiful buildings that are mostly in good shape, and it seems, just waiting for a revival of sorts. It is hard to imagine why young artists aren’t flocking here and making it home. It is such a cheap place to live, with amazing loft spaces right in town, and tons of culture. And the rivers!
So many beautiful steel bridges. This one leads to PNC Park, just across the river from downtown.
Here’s a view looking back across the water.
Our hotel was very near to Penn Station and on Sunday morning I took a walk over to check it out. As a kid I had traveled through it on the train, and the upper floors are now converted to “luxury” apartments. This is a section of the dome which used to be the main entryway from the street.
It was sad to see the “modern” waiting room like this.
With only two trains a day, and nothing running North/South there isn’t much activity. And the times aren’t particularly convenient.
Thanks for checking in. I’ll try to get on a more regular schedule of posting. Tomorrow Peggy Ross is coming over and we are meeting with my friends at Small Batch Books to start work on the Suitcases book reward. I’ll keep updating progress on the project, and plan to be back shooting next week.
Again
In the late afternoon of 28 October, 2011 I picked up Peter at Union and he and I were heading home for the weekend. Cristine was working in the Middle East, and the weather forecast was calling for a major storm. I was partway through the first suitcases Kickstarter campaign, and feeling unsure as to how it would all work out. We stopped at the first rest area on the MASS PIKE to get gas (and I think a packet of Hostess Cup Cakes). I looked at my phone and something like 80 emails that had just come in. I really thought there was a problem with my account and that the server was just resending old mail that I had already viewed. When I looked closely I realized that all the email had come from Kickstarter. They had just featured me as a “project we love”, and I immediately met my goal. That early winter storm rolled in big time and we were without electricity for the next 2 days. Wild./ Yesterday, I was shooting the suitcases in Rotterdam and was aware that the current Kickstarter appeal was ending in the evening. As I was driving east on the pike towards home, I stopped for gas at that same rest area, looked at my phone and saw this ($20,879 pledged with 341 backers, funding successful). It seemed just right that I discovered that both projects had gone over the top at the same location.
This is one of yesterday’s cases. It belonged to Joseph K.
Thank you all for your support and interest in the project. And a huge thanks to the folks at Kickstarter for running a great organization, and providing a venue that enables independent projects like this one to be successful.
Tilghman Again
I drove to Tilghman today for several days of shooting for the Waterman’s Museum. The sun was setting just as I crossed the Knapps Narrows Bridge and I stopped to take a few shots. I love this little bridge tender’s building. It is purportedly the busiest drawbridge in the US. / Looking forward to hanging with the Tilgman folks and working with Peter Carroll; it is always fun and they are so welcoming to us. And I am REALLY looking forward to Saturday’s Oyster and Ham dinner at the church.
Jon Crispin's Notebook 
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