Blog
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 […]
Apprentice to Genius: A Recommended Book
Reading Time: 5 minutes Apprentices Edgar Tafel (left) and Jack Howe (right) sitting on Taliesin’s hill crown. Wright’s bedroom is to the right of Howe’s left elbow. “You’ve made it,” I whispered to myself. At the far end of the room, on a raised platform serving as a stage, stood Mr. Wright. It was like coming into a presence. […]
Frank Lloyd Wright buildings are smaller than you think
Reading Time: 5 minutes Photograph of Fallingwater by Esther Westerveld from Haarlemmermeer, Nederland in 2012. The people standing on the upper terrace in this photograph are not 7 feet tall. They are normal-sized people. It’s the architecture that’s messing with your mind. I’m talking about what everyone—outside of Frank Lloyd Wright homeowners—has experienced: you go to a Wright structure […]
The First Fire
Reading Time: 6 minutes The photographer was on the Taliesin Hill Crown looking toward the structure after the first fire. The person seen standing on the left in the white shirt may be Frank Lloyd Wright. I’ve mentioned the 1914 fire a few times (and wrote about it snarkily), but I thought it’s time to address Taliesin’s first fire. […]
Taliesin II: the forgotten middle child of Taliesin
Reading Time: 7 minutes The photo at the top of this page shows the living quarters of Taliesin: the portion of the building rebuilt after the fire of 1914 and destroyed in the fire of 1925. Someone took is around 1922. Frank Lloyd Wright and Taliesin II:1 Frank Lloyd Wright named his home Taliesin, but later wrote that the […]
My Dam History
Reading Time: 6 minutes In early fall 2019, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation began work on Taliesin’s dam on Wright’s estate in Wisconsin. Hopefully, they’ll finish the work in 2022. Then, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation will again fill Taliesin’s pond. Once that happens, visitors will see the waterfall running on the north side of the stream. Those working […]
Of man’s first disobedience,
Reading Time: 5 minutes and the fruit/Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste/Brought death into the world, and all our woe,/With loss of Eden, till one greater Man/Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,/Sing heavenly muse. . . . Abstract About Paradise Lost So starts John Milton’s Paradise Lost, his poem about man’s fall in Eden. Originally published in […]
Raymond Trowbridge photos
Reading Time: 5 minutes In my last post I wrote about a photograph of a wall that no longer exists at Taliesin. I wrote that the photo was taken by Raymond Trowbridge in 1930 and I’d explain it in my next post. That photograph showed the wall in the Loggia fireplace. The photograph above is by the same photographer […]
About a Wall at Taliesin That No Longer Exists
Reading Time: 6 minutes I wrote this to myself over a decade ago. When I was asking questions about the history of Taliesin (as I often do). But, to start off: this post is about the photo at the top of this page. I’ve been trying to figure out the history of a wall between two rooms in Wright’s […]
How did Frank Lloyd Wright feel about Christmas?
Reading Time: 2 minutes Someone asked me that question in early December. Yet, I’ve tried to answer it, with no clear success, for years. After all, Wisconsin can be charmingly Christmas-Themed, with a dusting of snow and a chill in the air.* In addition, in his autobiography, Wright described Taliesin in winter as being a “frosted palace roofed and […]
