Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Board and Batten Cabin


This board and batten cabin was drying in the cabinet for quite a while. I wasn't sure the porch would make it if I picked it up once it was dry. As luck would have it, I knocked against one porch post and broke it as I was loading it into kiln for the bisque firing. I decided to make it part of the piece by leaving it as it might lay after having fallen on an abandoned house.


For years, beginning in 1985, almost every vacation we took Gary and I would travel to old ghost towns in the Southwest. Some of the towns and buildings we've documented in photos are no longer standing.


Other places have been refurbished and turned into art communities. The weather of the West being hot and dry is perfect to slow the deterioration of old wood buildings. I love the warm patina of the weathered wood.


Someone took time to add a bit of ornamentation to the fascia board at the eaves of this house and look how low the handle is on the door. Both of these buildings were in the same town and I just noticed the different styles of windows in each one.


I love the spring board on the side of this house. As I sort through my old photos, memories of my travels are refreshed in my mind. This post is part of the Mud Colony what's happening in the studio, click the link to see other studio happenings around the globe. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

16 comments:

  1. Hi Linda - What a great vacation destination to have and how beautiful your interpretation of the old buildings is!!

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  2. Hi Linda, thanks, I am really missing the old West these days, we hope to get back there one of these days.

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  3. The house you made captures the feeling of the ghost town houses. It makes you think about the structure as well as the people who may have lived there. It's all stories but your work lends itself to story telling. I like that you left the broken post, it does add character. Talk about your happy accidents!

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  4. Your house is fabulous! What did you do to get the "warm wood patina?"

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  5. What a lovely cabin you have made.

    Hugs
    Elna

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  6. OOh wow!!! That turned out awesome!

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  7. Cool houses....big and small.

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  8. From the lovely touches added to the houses, it's obvious the folks who built them intended them to last. What a shame they are left to decay.

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  9. We are lucky to live within short driving distance of many abandoned desert towns here in Utah. They are fun day trips - eerie and haunting sometimes - but always interesting.

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  10. Your little house is perfect. Amazing how they get to be what they mean. This one is very abandonded.

    Tell me about the springboard. I see a platform that might be lowered. How was it used. I'm getting no help on the internet. The right studies springboarding children to the next level, that modern crap. I would love to understand how this one is used.

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  11. Those old houses stir the imagination -- can see kids playing, running in and out, hear the quiet after they go to bed and wonder what the parents talk about in the kitchen, their dreams, hopes and worries.

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  12. I love your cabin - leaving the broken post was a really nice touch. I can absolutely understand why you would want to go and see the old ghost towns - such a shame that so many lovely old buildings are empty. I must do some reading up about them.

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  13. Leaving the broken posts on was so creative! Such interesting photos of the old houses, too.

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  14. Hi Lori, thanks so much, it was a happy accident as it can propel me into thinking more about the pieces I make, to making them more curious somehow for folks to want to make up a story about them.

    Hi Barbara, thanks, the warm wood patina is a matt glaze that fires that mottled color with a slow cool.

    Hi Elna, thanks, I am hoping to live in a cabin one of these days. Ha.

    Hi Turquoisemoon, thanks, I was pleasantly surprised at the results.

    Hi Smartcat, thanks, we sure are yearning to travel again.

    Hi Ms. Sparrow, thanks, whenever I see abandoned house I am always thinking of all the homeless folks and those who have lost their homes and wondering why they can live in them. Sad indeed, these were the towns from the gold rush days and when the gold ran out so did the people.

    Hi Julia, thanks, I'll bet you have some great places in Utah, we have been to some I'll have to ask Gary if he remembers.

    Hi Joanne, thanks, the spring board is the board that sprung off the side of the building, and the name I gave the photo when I exhibited it years ago. but I must look at the photo closer, perhaps there is something that I have missed, leave it to you to discover it.

    Hi Kittie, thanks, yes wonder what they were doing in their homes. Some of the ghost towns had furniture and supplies left right where they lay.

    Hi Elaine, thanks, some of the old architecture is so wonderful made with so much detail that is sometimes missing nowadays, there are hundreds of ghost towns and I noticed on wikipedia they are all over the world which I never even thought about.

    Hi Marguerite, thanks, I am so glad I left the broken post, it turned out to be a good thing. Ha.

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  15. You really captured the abandoned house and the broken post only added to the total picture.
    That last house has a spooky smile with occasional teeth.

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  16. Hi Patti, thanks so much, spooky smile with occasional teeth, I love it, you are so creative with words.

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I love suggestions, questions, critiques, thanks for your comment