Here is a shot from a couple years ago which I have not released anywhere else. It is another shot from my Traverse City State Hospital archive, depicting a small room with some impressive pipe fittings and what appears to be a heat register or radiator of some sort.
I miss shooting here very much, as the angles, textures, colors, and lighting always made me feel like a kid in a candy store. The juxtaposition of that artistic Eden against the narrative of what the place actually was...an asylum...never ceased to carry a tremendous impact for me. The parallels and imagery were unavoidable and in your face all the time. The beauty and complexity of the pipe fittings and of the human mind, both broken and now fallen into disuse yet still very much visible...the broken heat source amid cold walls while the warm sun blasts through the all-too-often broken window glass...it was a place I could have spent years in and still found new things to capture every day.
I chose this image for this month because while spring is approaching it is still quite cold here, and in some ways I feel like this room...waiting for warmth. Warmth is coming, for both myself and for this room. Spring is just around the corner, and this room is now being renovated and will likely serve as someone's climate-controlled office space (an asylum of a different sort, some would say) in the near future.
