It is Finished

   I cain’t hardly believe it, as the redneck said. I have just completed a year-long art project. Every day for a year I have taken a photograph from both the west and east windows of our home at exactly 7:00 a.m.

   This project was inspired by an installation I saw years ago at the Des Moines Art Museum in company with Steve Reynolds, a former resident of that fine city. In this installation, a woman had taken a photograph of her own face for a year. Some days she look beautiful, other days plain, some days scary. All art of course is subjective.

   I found this installation intriguing and when the smartphone came along with its digital camera, I started looking for a project of my own. Taking a picture of my face for a year would tempt me to be silly so I decided to take a picture out the window at 7:00 a.m. everyday for a year.

   I started on November 2, 2020, a Monday. This was the day after the return to Standard Time which brought an hour of daylight back to the early morning. I knew that in a few weeks, the yard would be in darkness again, so I added a shot out the east window where the rising sun would be visible a few more weeks. 

   Snow first appeared on November 12. By the 24th, it was black outside. The 27, 28th and 30th were faintly illuminated by the setting moon. Then darkness. On Jan 3, I caught the moon itself, then darkness again till Jan 8 when there was a shot of motel room in Duluth.

  A motel? Yes, here was my artist's dilemma. Should I have stayed home and remained faithful to my project while Teresa went off for a fun weekend in Duluth? It wasn't that much fun. All the restaurants were closed, but we wanted an escape from the pandemic, only to find the pandemic state of mind was everywhere.

   I could have asked Steve Reynolds to come over and take my photos out the window. He always checks our house when we're gone. He would have done it being an artist himself, but that would have been presuming too much. So I made a compromise. If I was ever away from home, I would take a picture to the west and the east wherever I was, ideally at 7:00 a.m  

   While the west window went totally dark for several weeks through the winter, the east window always had a glimmer of dawn if it wasn't overcast that is. The west window began to lighten in early February. In late February we took a trip to Massachusetts to visit the kids. Then begins a series of motel montages: Marshfield, WI, Bowling Green, Ohio, Wellsboro, PA, then 21 shots out my son's window overlooking a salt marsh, followed by a series of westward trending motels, until returning to the now illumined home windows on March 23.

   The lawn greened up in April. There were two final days of snow that month. The yard grew lush as May progressed into August. There were more motel parking lots during jaunts around the Midwest. Then another long spell of marsh views in Massachusetts in September,  followed by a long decline into autumnal darkness. I’ve had to extend my project a week because DST ended a week later this year than last and I wanted to have contrasting first and last shots.

   Now it’s time to take my show on the road. I’ll be contacting the Des Moines Art Museum unless they happen to see this post and contact me first.

West window, Palmville Township, November 2, 2020

Massachusetts marsh, March 4, 2021

Generic motel room, September 20, 2021

November 8, 2021, To see real changes, you must get out and about.