5 posts tagged “peeling paint”

I have been walking by this certain house, it is abandoned. It has two houses behind it, well a house and a concrete building. The concrete one gave me a creepy feeling, and there was a strange yucky smell too. Well, yesterday on my walk there were people working on the main house in the front. I asked if I could go in the back yard and take pictures as there seemed to be a lot of interesting stuff back there. He said yes, there was a lot of stuff back there and to have at it. So for the next hour or so I was back there. It was crazy! There was old garbage rotting back there, not like coffee grounds and junk mail garbage but things like old machinery, an early television, tires, short wave radios, speakers, metal drums, etc. Lots of rusting relics.

I walked back there and saw piles of stuff everywhere. So I take it slow, start with the garage house first and just work my way through the yard. Apples from the four apple trees squishing below my feet, stumps from newly cut bushes and trees grabbing my toes. Taking it slow, taking it all in. There is so much to see.

I must have taken close to 200 pictures (love digital!) I am getting better at framing at taking pictures. When I started taking pictures I would take 100 pictures and save maybe 25 after I cropped them down and changed the shading etc. But now, it seems I did not touch very many of these at all. I took over 300 pictures on my walk and posted almost 200 on flickr. I just feel like I don't want to miss anything. I get home and start to look through the pictures from my walk on the computer and I see details I had not seen while I was there and wished I had.

It seems I have opened a door inside of myself, I like what I have found.

these were all sitting outside of the battery house. Sitting idle after working so hard for so long. Losing all hope for purpose again, until the day I saw them. When I saw them, they became sculpture. They jumped alive, showed me every curve, every shadow. They showed me that after being something utilitarian, a working mans objects, they have a higher purpose. To inspire, to show beauty in places people don't look, to shine for the first time in a long time. They were once useful, but now they are Art. They showed me that I hold the same qualities, we all do. Thank you old boom truck, thank you wire in the grass, thank you tractor, thank you machinery, thank you anvil made from a railroad track, thank you door hinge, thank you scrap metal.
Thank you.

Crunching leaves under my feet warm breeze on my face, sweater sleeves tied around my waist. This was my day on Monday. I walked until I found an abandoned house, houseS. There were three on the same lot. You just could not see two of them from the street. It was for sale, so I walked into the neglected yard. The smell of dust and mildew soon replaced the smell of decaying leaves and the joes store potato wedges (they always smell so much better than they taste) I kept pushing myself back into the bushes. It was a lost world, a fairy playland. Windows were broken, the walls were cracked, the paint peeling. I trespassed, I don't learn lessons well I guess. When I was in the back yard, I could not get to the other side, because of all the blackberry brambles. I went around, the back door was open. I cautiously went inside.She used to have a dog, there are leashes and a dog pen. i was snapping photo after photo, quickly. I felt like at any moment someone was going to yell at me wondering why I was there, my only answer would be Curiosity, exploration, art, and admiring the beautiful decay.Would that answer be enough? The thought vanished as I saw the garage door open, I went in. It carpeted with papers and books that have been soaking up Washington rain for the last decade. There were jars hand made preserves, pears and applesauce, jam and pickles. All waiting to be consumed, all out of a garden that used to inhabit the backyard. A straw broom almost worn down to the stitches holding it together. Broken chairs that have so many stories to tell.  I  turn to leave and I see outside of the back door not the hidden yard that is overgrown but the way it WAS. Two apple trees, neatly cropped, and two pear trees on the opposite side. A laundry line with rose patterned sheets blowing in the summer breezes, a sweet little metal gate leading to the vegetable patch where a large basket sits still. I saw what it looked like before the blackberries, before the tall grass, before the broken glass, before the wind blew the large wooden fence to the ground. I felt a pain in my chest wanting so badly to hang clothes on the line, I know that will never happen there again, picking apples for a pie, it all seemed so romantic, so beautiful and simple.

Next spring I am going to plant some fruit and veggies, put up a large laundry line.

The girl is my 16 year old niece who got caught skipping class. I happened upon the scene near the end of my walk.