Blog
David Wojnarowicz
Reading Time: 7 minutes Looking at Untitled (Hujar Dead), 1987-88. “Hujar” was Wojnarowicz’s mentor & dear friend. The piece has writing silk screened over photographs of Peter Hujar (who had just died from an AIDS-related illness). The writing, in part, says, “I’m a thirty seven foot tall one thousand one hundred and seventy-two pound man inside this six foot […]
In Return for the Use of the Tractor
Reading Time: 4 minutes Photograph taken in 1943. From Taliesin’s Breezeway looking (plan) south at Wright’s apprentice, Curtis Besinger. He’s in Taliesin’s Garden Court, sorting through flagstones that would later be put on the ground in the courtyard. In my goal of researching Taliesin’s history, I examined Wright’s correspondence looking for anything that might give information about changes Wright […]
“Keiran: don’t try to correct the Internet”
Reading Time: 4 minutes That’s what a former boyfriend once told me. I believe that came after I’d spent feverish, anxious hours trying to change every incorrect utterance online to Frank Lloyd Wright’s birth date: June 8, 1867. What was wrong? People wrote (and still sometimes write) incorrectly that he was born on June 8, 1869. What can I […]
“This will be a nice addition…”
Reading Time: 5 minutes A drawing of Taliesin, executed in June 1911. This drawing is accessible from https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/28509365;prevRouteTS=1621879846896 110 years ago, on May 25, 1911, the Weekly Home News (the newspaper of Spring Green, Wisconsin), noted on page 4 that: “Mrs. Hannah Wright is building her home in Hillside valley, adjoining the old homestead, a little north and west […]
“Treat him well and love him as I do”—Frank Lloyd Wright on Mies van der Rohe
Reading Time: 4 minutes Two pictures of the Midwest in Spring: the top shows the Farnsworth House, by Mies van der Rohe, in Plano, IL in early April. The bottom shows Taliesin, and was taken in early June. Taliesin, in Wisconsin, is 3 hours north of the Farnsworth House. I looked into architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) […]
Why Did You Have to do That, Mr. Wright?!1
Reading Time: 4 minutes Two views of the same space, 89 years apart. Frank Lloyd Wright began his home, Taliesin (south of Spring Green, Wisconsin), in 1911 and worked on it almost continuously until he died in 1959. As researcher and historian I easily documented over 100 changes he made just to his home (that number doesn’t include the […]
The Worst Mistake We’ve Ever Made as a Species
Reading Time: 5 minutes Caption: “Moreuil, France, 30 July 1916. Nurses Coloimbet, Louis, Egot and Flageollet pose with solders at a French military hospital in Moreuil, in the départment of the Somme. This picture was taken a month after the start of the Battle of the Somme…” A7794. Stéphane Passet. That was my assessment about World War I after […]
Taliesin’s 1925 Fire
Reading Time: 4 minutes Looking north at Taliesin, 1920-24. On the far left is a workman’s apartment. The vertical tower to the right of the apartment is called the “Hill Tower”. On the far right are Wright’s living quarters. The workman’s apartment and Wright’s living quarters are connected under roofs. But, you can’t see it all because the building […]
Mortar Mix
Reading Time: 5 minutes This post is about figuring out where Wright was standing in the photo at the top of this page. And, several years ago, “Looked at some mortar,” was my answer to the question, “What did you do at work today?” Wait – what? Why? A collection of images in Delaware: Earlier that day someone from […]
Books by apprentices
Reading Time: 4 minutes Last time I wrote on the book Years With Frank Lloyd Wright: Apprentice to Genius by former Wright apprentice, Edgar Tafel. This week I’m writing about more books by Taliesin Fellowship apprentices. If you need to remember what the Taliesin Fellowship is, click here Memoirs by former apprentices: Reflections From the Shining Brow: My years […]
