project (W)

Project (W) is a work in progress.

The (W) stands for Winterthur Museum, the former estate of H. F. du Pont in the bucolic Brandywine Valley– just outside Wilmington, Delaware. As it happens, Winterthur is also my place of employment and is, therefore, where I spend most of the hours in my days.

Since childhood I've been fascinated by what time does to color, texture, and mass, and how those changes parallel our own physical, human experiences. Project (W) is, at it's core, an attempt to explore my fascination with the beauty and sensuality of ruin. 

Before I began Project (W) I'd never really been able to articulate my fascination with paint peeling, metal rusting, wood rotting, petals falling, flesh sagging, and memories failing. I grew up around boat yards in New York, where I witnessed– even over the course of a single summer– what sun, wind, and rain can do to a freshly painted piece of wood, to shiny brass fittings, to new cloth canopies, and to white winter skin. But as this project unfolded I found myself contemplating my own fragile humanity. As I stood in these spaces and thought about their respective histories, I could almost feel the presence of those who once lived and worked in them. Though some of the structures are in the process of being preserved, they have, in effect, outlived their original purposes and usefulness. Like those who built and once inhabited these spaces, their physical presence will eventually fade away.

And so, Project (W) ultimately became a chronicle of nature's inevitable course: regardless of any effort to the contrary, paint will eventually peel, metal will rust, wood will rot, petals will fall, flesh will sag, and memories will fail. In the meantime– I can only hope to capture the exquisite beauty I see in decline.

click on image to enlarge

Thank you for visiting-
                       
                            Nat