Hawthorn Street

I was supposed to have lived on Hawthorn Street just down the road from where these photographs were taken. The plan however began to dissolve right as I was crossing into Pennsylvania. I was moving everything I could fit into my Volvo station wagon from Tampa Florida to my sister’s house back to the city I was born in, Pittsfield Massachusetts. My sister, newly divorced, had offered to rent me a room in the duplex where she had been living on her own for the first time ever.

So as I’m about half way through the 1200 mile trek, my sister had been thinking about it and decided that she didn’t want me cramping her newly single lifestyle and suggested I go to my mother’s house instead. I told her no. I never even saw the old weathered furniture warehouse as I sped past seconds from landing after a two day drive. My sister however had been working up the courage, mainly by drinking straight bourbon, to again try and talk me out of living with her. Unfortunately that didn’t work but when she refused to restart her cable modem so I could connect to the internet and do homework, I split for mom’s. The only thing was that mom didn’t have a clue I was even back. Five years later the both would be dead and I would be set adrift. Alone in a rowboat to navigate a path across an unrelentingly stormy sea.

When my sister was tragically killed after being struck by a car, I went back to her duplex to see if there was anything of hers I wanted. As I was leaving making my way down Hawthorn street, I see the most unusual looking tin building and stopped. It was one of those rare beautiful times that I didn’t even have to think about it and left speeding across the city to get my camera so I could speed back to do a “study”. I had never seen anything like it. Years of painting over paint, rust, and staining had created the most amazing textured patina that I became obsessed with capturing. There are these paint-over-paint-over=paint textures that look exactly like that multi-colored modeling clay I played with in preschool. Other sections are reminiscent of Mark Rothko. Some even look like they were taken by a microscope at the cellular level.

Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
Close up of the patina build-up on the exterior wall of an old factory on Hawthorn Street
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