This is my Home

Week Fifty Two and a Half…

My dear friends, I am posting a few days late for I did not want to end this blog on a rainy note.  I thought deeply about what was more important to me: putting up a mediocre shot on the last day of the year of this project or waiting three days to capture what I have had in my head for near five months and well, the latter won.

I don’t think I need to explain much about what this is, this is my home shot from above.  This 14 mile long island holds all ways of life and all sorts of history and I hope that in the last year I have been able to capture the island in it’s own element.  I’ve shown this land in both snow and sun, from farms to hot dog shops, futuristic boats to worn fishing vessels .  I thought I knew Aquidneck when I started this last August, I thought I connected to everything this place had to offer but those feelings are shattered now having taken a year to explore where I call home.  I’ve driven through every neighborhood, down close to every street, visited places near to my heart and explored corners I only thought I had explored before.

I tried to show my home in an honest light.  Nothing staged, nothing faked.  I have been asked many times during this project if I had planned out the shots or not and for the most part I would have a location in my head and then adapt my ideas to what was offered to me at said location.  That being said I could not have planned that llama shot but I did drive around the island for 2 hours that day looking for something to shoot!  All in all this project has brought me closer to the island I call home and I am thankful that you all were there to share it with me.

Thank you all for supporting me with your comments and fervor for the project.

Garrett

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Week Fifty-One…

So I had some trepidation in choosing this for my second to last shot.  I mean it’s a bust of a bull attached to a house: it’s not too huge, it’s not too monumental and it definitely doesn’t give you the warm and tingly feeling like some other shots would have you feel.  However this is the shot of the week.  I choose it because I love the fact there is a bust of bull at the base of Bull St., a street named for Henry Bull who lived there and was one of the original settlers in Portsmouth and Newport back in 1638.  Bull was a Quaker who served as the Governor of Rhode Island twice and in his younger years colonial militia officer and a jail keeper.

There is another reason I wanted this to be a part of the project.  People have been asking me a lot what the last shots will be and while I have something planned for next week that I won’t tell, I kept throwing out this idea of the bull and nobody knew what I was talking about.  There are so many unique and old aspects to the buildings that surround us that go unnoticed as we drive and walk by in our everyday lives.  Walk down Broadway and look at the buildings: you’ll see gables, artistic returns, copulas and spires.  Walk past the Newport Blues Cafe and you will see the words “Safe Deposit” etched into the ivy choked brownstone building and above the entrance to the next building the words “Organize” and “Co-Operate”.  Then there is one of my favorite buildings in Newport.  The Audrain Building on the corner of Bellevue and Casino Terrace.  It’s a brick and marble building with crests of lions, snakes, falcons and scallop shells.  Also above each arched window there are devilish heads standing guard.

So there it is, the second to last week of the project.  A bull standing tall in memory of a man who helped shape this island and a simple reminder to look up every now and then: you may be surprised at what you find.

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Week Fifty…

Nothing too complicated here, just a little garden bench over looking the Sakonnet River.  To me, what warrants this picture is the location of said bench.  It’s on a little street out in Portsmouth called Cliff Ave. in a neighborhood named the Hummocks.  The Hummocks is now a well defined neighborhood do to the escape bridge built in the 1960s and the highway coming off the Sakonnet River bridge (1956).  But upon entering this neighborhood via the escape bridge you get a sense of the island could have looked like before the 1600′s when settlers arrived.  This bench sits across the street from a small pond surrounded by cedar trees.  The houses, all tastefully built and maintained, are situated among the mounds of puddingstone that the neighborhood was built around.  Across the main road in this little neighborhood you have views of the gravel pits and it doesn’t take too much effort to block out the highway and picture a young Wampanoag in a dug out canoe paddling back out the mouth of the cove with a days haul of quahogs…

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The Other Side

Week Forty-Nine…

A few weeks back, actually it was 4th of July weekend, Melissa and I went the rocks for a swim and we meet up with Rachael, her mom Joann and Josie.  We all swam and while we were basking in the sunlight everyone started bouncing around ideas for the last few weeks of this project.  Joann suggested this shot.  She said that she loves looking through the tunnel when she walks the cliff walk.  Melissa and I took her dogs for a walk there later in the day and I scouted this shot.  I feel that it is quite fitting for this stage in the project.  The end is close, very close and I feel like this shot exemplifies how I feel…a few more steps, another corner or two and then I’m through the tunnel.

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A little hideaway

Week Forty-Eight…

We all have them, those little places on the island that we call our own, even if they aren’t ours at all.  The friend’s backyard on the point in Newport, the uncle’s place in Portsmouth, a favorite rock on Sachuest Point or a walking trail through Norman Bird Sanctuary.  A place that let’s us escape, reminds us of quite times or nothing at all.  This is not unique to our island but I know that this place I call home, is what many, many others call their hideaway.  Perhaps some of the vacationers know of a little corner as tranquil as what is pictured above but perhaps it is simply that the island itself that looks like this to them.  We are in the height of tourist season here and our roads are packed, the restaurants are full and the beach is speckled with brightly colored umbrellas.  Everyone has their reasons for coming and we that are fortunate enough to live here have our reasons for staying, this is one of my reasons.

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Week Forty-Seven…

In the continuation of my farm theme, yesterday I went to one of the three weekly farmer’s markets we have on the island.  And to be honest my dear friends, this was my first time at a farmer’s market on the Island.  I know, I know but you have to realize that I have a farmer’s market in my parents back yard so in my mind there wasn’t a need to go buy veggies when I could get them from my backyard or my parents however I have been missing out on a lot.  There is more than carrots and lettuce at these things!  Narraganset Creamery was there and I sampled some of their Salty Sea Feta which is gently brined in sea salt and I bought some fresh mozz from them.  Simmon’s farm was there with a beautiful display of veggies and a selection of their organic meat.  I saw a fellow bartender there and while we were talking he said he was there for the Pork Chops and he comes every week to get them.

This shot is of bread, yup, bread.  It is from Provencal Bakery which is located in Middletown.  I served, and ate, a lot of this stuff while I was working at Castle Hill and I have to say, it’s great stuff.  There is nothing like a fresh sourdough loaf.  I didn’t buy a big loaf yesterday while I was there though because something else caught my eye on the table.  There were these little flaky rolls which had a whole tomato, fresh mozz and chopped herbs in the middle.  It took everything in me to not eat it on the ride home.  I popped it into the toaster oven and had a great snack.

I think we have a great little community here on the island and I hope that with this photo project I am helping to add to the culture of this great island.

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Elephant Ears

Week Forty-Six

There are things that stick out in your memory that are as clear as day however, sometimes these memories are only personified by the pictures from that day.  Point in case, my childhood memory of going to Green Animals.  I had a childhood friend, Christopher Lloyd,  who’s father was in the Navy and as with most all Navy families around these parts their tenure on this island was short lived.  Days before his family was to leave town his mom and my mom took us on the train from Newport to Green Animals in Portsmouth.  Now I’d like to say that I remembered how the gardens looked then or what the rest of the day entailed but I can’t recall much more from that day aside from the picture one of our parents took of us on the train that day.  I guess what I’m saying is that photos have more to offer than conveying a feeling or situation.  In many cases they are all we have to remember our days by and now I almost have a years worth of these memories!

At first Green Animals was the summer residence of Thomas E. Brayton who was the treasure of the Union Cotton Manufacturing Company in Fall River, MA.  It would make perfect sense that he would have chosen this parcel of land for the company that he oversaw surly used the rail lines that crossed the foot of this property on the western shore of our island (remember my first post!?).  In 1905 Mr. Brayton hired Joseph Carreiro as the superintendent gardener and Carreiro is the one responsible for creating the gardens we now call Green Animals.  This picture was taken in the Formal Garden area which boasts topiaries dating back to 1910…yes, that’s right, for one hundred years these plants have been groomed and maintained.  So our friend Elephant Ears here has been standing watch over this estate for one hundred years now…job well done old man, job well done.

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Week Forty-Five

This was taken on Monday.  The day where it went from being in the 80′s to hurricane like rain and lighting to this fire swept sunset.  I was on my way back from watching one of my nieces play in an All-Star Softball game and decided to take the longer way home.  I went West Main rd. to Burma rd. for I knew that this was going to be one of the best sunsets of the summer.

The funny thing to me with shooting digital and editing on the computer is that I could have tweaked out the contrast in this photo and lightened and cleaned up and desaturated the reds and bumped up the blues and I would have had a crisp picture with a nice contrasting sky.  However, that’s not what it looked like when I took the shot.  The sky was red, the boat and the pilings were silhouetted and that little gull in the corner was just sitting there not giving anyone the time of day.  So I left it just as I saw it…

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Week Forty-Four

So I think I’m in a Garden, Farm, Old Time kind of feel place in my photography these days…I saw all the hay bales rolled the other day and had this picture in my head, and the old tractor made the shot for me.  Not much to say about this picture aside from the fact that it reminds me a lot of the many trips to Pennsylvania I made in my childhood.  I remember driving through the Amish countryside on my way to our family in Easton Penn. and on our trips to Hershey Park.  I also remember driving past rolls of hay that were bigger than the car and getting out and climbing atop them because I was a young boy and that’s what young boys want to do…however I advise against doing that for the remainder of that day was one long itchy car ride to the Shoney Inn and the awaiting pool!!!

Enjoy this beautiful weather folks!

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Slaughterhouse Swiss

Week Forty-Three…

My dear readers I am writing to tell you that I have absconded with a lovely young lady and some puppies and have taken up residence in the small town of Villeneuve, Switzerland.  We are located on the southeastern shore of Lake Geneva.  I have abandoned the 52 Weeks on Aquidneck for a year-long project through the Swiss countryside.  I know this comes as a shock to most of you for I probably saw you this weekend but it was a spur of the moment decision and I am presently happy and content with the clean mountain air.

Ok, once again, I lied.  I’m still here in little Rhody and this was taken in Newport.  Once a year the doors to The Swiss Village Foundation on Harrison Ave are opened to the public and we are allowed to step back in time.  This is a fisheye view of the once slaughterhouse/smokehouse.  What impressed me the most about the buildings here were the curved shingles.  They steam the shingles and then warm them to wrap around the edge of the roof.  Just an amazing detail to see in person.

The SVF is a privately owned farm which deals in Heritage Breeds of cattle, sheep, goats and chickens.  Like all of our island the history of the 35 acre property that we now call SVF is storied and has changed hands several times.  Originally built-in 1916 the land was groomed to look like a Swiss village near the Italian border and was originally a farm for the households, yacht, and farm hands of the Arthur Curtiss James estate.  The property was passed on through the family and eventually was re-named from “Surprise Valley Farm” to “Edgehill” and then through the 1970′s till the 1990′s was both an alcoholic rehabilitation center and a rehabilitation center for the disabled.

I feel that this place is a good continuation of the theme from last week: the lure and mystery of the island.  I can not count the times I have driven by this farm and watched the Llamas standing guard over the grazing sheep and simply wondered to myself…what lies beyond these stone walls.  Well now I know and honestly I feel richer for the experience.  My friends I am sorry to say that if you missed this open house last week you will not be able to go back for another year however, mark it on your calendar for just one day out of the year you can simply hop in your car or ride you bike to the foothills and farms of Eastern Switzerland.

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