Welcome!


Monticello Road is a community arts project in Charlottesville, Virginia. Through photography and a series of public events and conversations, we explore how an art can be an essential, integral and everyday part of a healthy community.


About | Summary | Events | Media | Backers | Contact/Sign Up | Donate




Saturday, November 28, 2009

Closing a chapter


We're all migrants, one way or another.


I’m rolling back up to New York today on a mission to pack and retrieve my studio. It’s a perfect—if chilly—fall day, two days after Thanksgiving and the day after Sebastian’s 6th birthday.

The early hour (I’m on the Starlight Express) plus the exquisite light makes it a perfect day to work on my Starlight photo series but the bus is packed and I’m not by the window, so I’ll have to remember the beauty with my mind instead.

As usual, the trip is fraught with emotion; more than the usual separation anxiety and the oddness of instantly transforming from Countrymouse to Citymouse over and over. I’m stressed about the usual worries of moving (and moving artwork to boot). Too many details are unresolved two days out: haven’t heard from the truck company; don’t know if I’ll have elevator access (long, tiresome story there); not sure if I’ll have anyone to help me. Yikes!

The big thing in the background, though, is that this will finally cap off my move from New York to Charlottesville. Of course I’m sad to give up the studio but I’m totally pumped to get going in my new space, which is great. Most of all, I will be very glad to have definitively completed my move, which has dragged on for six months now, keeping me in limbo and effectively without a base of operations. I am a very nimble guy, but it will be wonderful to finally have my feet on solid ground.

Moving is like breaking up with someone—best to do it decisively and without hanging on to something that’s not there anymore.

But will New York want to be “just friends?”

No comments: