Thursday, April 29, 2010

Telling Stories Through Barn Windows


New England's barns inspire me. Despite having similar basic designs, each one tells a story about what happens inside of it, the animals and people it houses and the seasons it endures. Some are the pride of yuppie families from big cities, others are functional parts of a farm passed down through generations of rugged farmers. Regardless of their condition or creed, old barns capture the story of their surroundings.

Like a young boy unable to take the entire beach with him, settling only on a lone sand dollar, I collect barn windows. Better than a picture, these windows act as a tangible homage to the buildings they once belonged to. Rummaging at flea markets, hunting at dusty antique malls and asking retired farmers if I could pick apart their collapsed barns, I am on the lookout for unique windows that remind me of New England.

A barn tells a story about the land it rests on. A photo depicts a similar narrative about a unique setting.

Feeling like Samuel W. Francis, the genius that combined the spoon and the fork into the spork, I sat on my bed taping pictures to an old window. Organizing the photos as I would a blog post, the window framed a story, more coherent and insightful than a standard print.

Scrapers and sandpaper remove flakes and loose paint from the windows.

Coats of water-based lacquer protect the old paint and keep it in place, ensuring that the window will keep its story intact.

Tucker working on a window.

The glass is scraped to remove years of paint, lacquer and dirt.
Epoxy anchors the glass panes to the frame.

No two windows are alike and each narrative of photos is printed once. The windows add context to the collection of photos, conveying a coherent story. I envision a window filled with images of food overlooking the kitchen and another window hung in the den acting as a portal to the Maine coast. I will share these windows on my blog and they will be available for purchase.

Here are some more links,
Telling Stories with Barn Windows (Picasa),
Windows (ART).

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful, sensual & poetic, I just love love love your blog!

Thank you for nice comment on my blog!

Agneta, the swedish one ;)

Foster Huntington said...

Agneta,
thanks for the kind words. your welcome for the comment. I am very excited about the project and can't wait to share them,
foster

Unknown said...

it's nice to see your appreciation for windows made from wood and glass...here in los angeles so many old homes of different styles have had all their windows replaced with those god awful vinyl windows....
damn those cheep bastards that dont want to spend the money and put in the real wood paned windows...foster are you sure theres not an 80 year old in that body of yours...you have such an old souls observation of things...
your mother must be proud !

Unknown said...

An excellent blog. Thank you.

Foster Huntington said...

D,
new, vynle windows are the worst. Thankfuly my parents instilled me an appreciation for old things. All of the windows in the house I grew up with are wooden and I knew they were cool,
thanks for the kind words,
foster

Main Street said...

I love barns. Beautiful photos!

Fern said...

I LOVE this. Wish I was so handy. Thanks for sharing!

Foster Huntington said...

glad you like the concept, i will post photos of the result soon,
foster

Kit said...

common interests from a northern english lad living in auckland, new zealand. barns. tools. sunsets. shoes (flying in the air, sure). new england fishing shacks. history of objects

beautiful blog. keep it going

viagra online said...

Excellent pictures, I love the place where you live?? it has some amazing views and also looks so quite and peaceful.