Blog
Buying the hill
Reading Time: 2 minutes On April 10, 1911, Frank Lloyd Wright’s mother, Anna, purchased 31.65 acres of land in The Valley south of Spring Green, Wisconsin. The land, which cost $2,274.88, is where Wright would build the structure you see in the photo above: his home, Taliesin. I put a copy of the warranty deed below: Warranty deed is […]
I was a slush pile reader
Reading Time: 4 minutes I regret that I did not get practice in the field of professional writing while I was in college getting that degree. I had one great writing teacher who required us to read and critique submissions by our classmates. I still remember Dennis saying that, “you will write nothing worth a damn until you are […]
My March Madness
Reading Time: 4 minutes I took this photograph in March 2005, showing the landscape around Taliesin. There was a work-related reason for it: I was photographing the area to see how it matched up with Taliesin in 1911. That’s because the Wisconsin Historical Society had just won the bid for “The Album” of Taliesin photos from 1911-1912 (here’s my […]
Missing Wright
Reading Time: 7 minutes Three photographs of statues at Midway Gardens, by Frank Lloyd Wright. The statues represent “attributes of geometry”1. The two photos on the left show the Octagon statue, and the one of the right shows “cube”. I took this photo from my copy of the “Wendingen”. No: not missing the man, Frank Lloyd Wright. I’m talking […]
Wright called it the Water Garden
Reading Time: 6 minutes Looking west at the Taliesin residence in September 2005. I took this because I figured I should have at least one nice photo of Taliesin and the pond. The pond at Taliesin that is.1 Wright created this pond by building a dam on the north side of the Lowery Creek in 1911-1912. Here is a […]
Taliesin Kitties
Reading Time: 5 minutes Photograph of future architect (then apprentice) John Lautner (1911-1994) and wife Mary Faustina Roberts Lautner (“Marybud”, 1913-1995) standing at the southwest corner of Taliesin’s hill crown. Behind them is the chimney that served the dining rooms of the Taliesin Fellowship and the Wrights. I wrote about this space, here. The photo was taken by apprentice […]
Things I learned at Taliesin
Reading Time: 6 minutes To know why the top of the post says the number “42”, read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. I know these things – through my work at as the Taliesin historian, when I worked in the Taliesin tour program, and/or I answered weekly questions in the “Hey Keiran” feature. You’ll see […]
Terry Teachout and 2005
Reading Time: 5 minutes This is my old friend, Terry. He passed away in January of last year. Terry Teachout (February 6, 1956 – January 13, 2022) I’m in a mood. That’s because, for the last day I’ve been thinking about Terry, and missing him. Knowing the date of the one-year anniversary of his death was coming up, I […]
More winter activities
Reading Time: 5 minutes I took this photograph looking out of a window of my office at the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center. You can see my lone car in the parking lot. Sometimes when I came into work, the ice was a little “sketchy” to the employee-parking-lot up one level. In that case, I just stayed below rather […]
Snow at Taliesin
Reading Time: 2 minutes Edmund Teske took this photograph in the winter of 1936-37. He was in the Breezeway at Taliesin, looking northeast towards the Living Room. This week, a winter storm is crossing the United States. This storm reminded me of one of the “At Taliesin” newspaper articles written by apprentices in the Taliesin Fellowship. This article is […]
