Blog Archives
From a broken home, 2
Here’s a closer – and sadder – view of that sofa from yesterday’s post.
It wasn’t just the sofa: the sculpted carpet, long out of fashion, and the fireplace and the plastic wallboard all contributed to the sadness of the place.
New Deal, Texas
photographed 2.12.2016
From a broken home, 1
It was the sofa.
I often see these double-wide mobile homes being transported down the road, with the white wrapping on the inside side pulled tight. When I see them that way, they are just part of someone’s house being hauled someplace new. This one, moored beside a narrow road, was different from the beginning, with strips of plastic flapping slowly in the breeze.
But it was seeing that sofa, stuck in a half-living-room, that put it on a human scale.
New Deal, Texas
photographed 2.12.2016
The last two things
These old houses decay in the same pattern. The people go, whatever yard there was goes to weeds, a storm peels off a few shingles, rain gets in, the roof gets a hole, then some more shingles go, more rain gets in, the front porch starts to sag, the roof sags, the porch falls off, the roof caves in.
But through it all, the satellite dish and the tress hang on..
near New Deal, Texas
photographed 1.26.2013
One Day | One Image 