ASH NICOLE
AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF BEING ALIVE, I HAVE FOUND JOY IN FEW THINGS, AS MUCH AS I HAVE IN TRAVELING, EXPLORING AND DOCUMENTING EACH PLACE THAT TOUCHES MY SOUL.
WHILE THIS COLLECTION SHOWCASES MY TRAVELS IN ONLY A FEW PHOTOGRAPHS, I HOPE YOU START TO FEEL WHAT IT MEANS TO INAHBIT EVERY LOCATIONWHAT IT MEANS TO FALL IN LOVE WITH EVERY COTTAGE + COBBLE STREET AND WHAT IT MEANS TO BREATHE IN THE FRESH AIR CREATED BY GIANT TREES.
UNFORTUNATELY, PHOTOGRAPHS HAVE BEEN LOST BETWEEN HARD DRIVES + MOVES, SO NOT EVERY NEW PLACE HAS A SPACE IN THIS BOOK BUT AS I DISCOVER MORE OF THE EARTH, MORE COLLECTIONS WILL COME.
THIS IS ONLY PART ONE.
CHRIS MCCANDLESS
Inside, it is marble, chilled. Notice the carpet, a perfect replica of the original. This the first famous house where I’ve been let in. What a dream. 360-degree fireplace and a conversation pit, the cushion colors of which would be switched according to season. We shuffle through the rooms, rotating our bodies to see it all again: the golds and greens and peacock blues. I don’t know the names for any of these things except what the guide tells me: primitive figurines collected by Mr. Miller, folk art next to a glass piece that won an award at the Venice Biennale.
columbus
The glossy kitchen where Mrs. Miller herself clearly never cooked, island cabinets being exactly face-level to hide the expression of the one cooking or cleaning on the other side. To see the other side of a room, my mother steps off the beige runner and onto the stone floor and the guide stops midsentence to remind her to please stay on the marked path. Everyone—the rest of us who have no trouble staying where we are told—turns and looks. My own irritation
I muzzle by staring into the chandelier. The house and its light, a room for each of the children. The empty wall where Monet water lilies once hung.
At the Miller House Anni Lui
Oh Tennessee, My Tennessee Naval Adm. William Porter Lawrence
Oh Tennessee, My Tennessee
Oh Tennessee, My Tennessee
What Love and Pride I Feel for Thee. You Proud Ole State, the Volunteer, Your Proud Traditions I Hold Dear.
I Revere Your Heroes Who Bravely Fought our Country’s Foes. Renowned Statesmen, so Wise and Strong, Who Served our Country Well and Long.
I Thrill at Thought of Mountains Grand; Rolling Green Hills and Fertile Farm Land; Earth Rich with Stone, Mineral and Ore; Forests Dense and Wild Flowers Galore; Powerful Rivers that Bring us Light; Deep Lakes with Fish and Fowl in Flight; Thriving Cities and Industries; Fine Schools and Universities; Strong Folks of Pioneer Descent, Simple, Honest, and Reverent.
great smokies
Beauty and Hospitality Are the Hallmarks of Tennessee.
And O’er the World as I May Roam, No Place Exceeds my Boyhood Home. And Oh How Much I Long to See My Native Land, My Tennessee.
Calm as that second summer which precedes The first fall of the snow, In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds, The City bides the foe.
As yet, behind their ramparts stern and proud, Her bolted thunders sleep— Dark Sumter, like a battlemented cloud, Looms o’er the solemn deep.
No Calpe frowns from lofty cliff or scar To guard the holy strand; But Moultrie holds in leash her dogs of war Above the level sand.
charleston
Meanwhile, through streets still echoing with trade, Walk grave and thoughtful men, Whose hands may one day wield the patriot’s blade
As lightly as the pen. Thus girt without and garrisoned at home, Day patient following day, Old Charleston looks from roof, and spire, and dome, Across her tranquil bay.
But still, along you dim Atlantic line, The only hostile smoke Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine, From some frail, floating oak.
Charleston Henry Timrod
Minnie J. Hardy
I’m glad to be here where the mountains rise
Dazzling white beneath the clear blue skys
From crimson dawn till the dear day dies Way out West in Utah. Where the mountain air is pure and sweet, Where fresh, cool water flows down the street And the climate!
Friend, it can’t be beat; Delightful magnificent Utah.
utah
God made Utah and He made it grand, The beauty spot of His glories land, Where Plenty supplies with a generous hand
All of our needs and wants in Utah.
Mighty mountains, sylvian vales, Picturesque canyons and rugged trails, Joy’s your companion, health never fails, Happiness dwells in Utah.
Edgar Kaufmann, jr. Dedication Ceremony, 1963
Fallingwater’s beauty remains fresh like that of the nature into which it fits.
House and site together form the very image of man’s desire to be at one with nature, equal and wedded to nature.
Fallingwater was created by Frank Lloyd Wright as a declaration that in nature man finds his spiritual as well as his physical energies, that a harmonious response to nature yields the poetry and joy that nourish human living.
. . . it is a work by man for man, not by a man for a man.
The union of powerful art and powerful nature into something beyond the sum of their separate powers deserves to be kept living. I believe the [Western Pennsylvania] Conservancy will give nature, the source, full due, and art, the human response to nature, full respect.
fallingwater
Out Where the West Begins Arthur Chapman
Out where the handclasp’’s a little stronger,
Out where the smile dwells a little longer, That’s where the West begins;
Out where the sun is a little brighter, Where the bonds of home are a wee bit tighter, That’s where the West begins.
Out where the skies are a trifle bluer,
Out where the friendship’s a little truer, That’s where the West begins;
Out where a fresher breeze is blowing, Where there’s laughter in every stream let flowing,
Where there’s more of reaping and less of sowing, That’s where the West begins.
Out where the world is in the making, Where fewer hearts in despair are aching, That’s where the West begins.
Where there’s more of giving and less of buying, That’s where the West begins.
the badlands + the butte
Hey, Marfa Jeffrey Yang
Hey, Marfa grant us the grace of a certain candor and the firm perswasion [sic] to vow for more than what is offered by the news each day
Each seed sown in your fertile sands rain drops water polyps pop out, branch ing into sun desert coral.
west texas
Montreal (Written in Winter.) W. M. Mackeracher
By thee, fair City, is Mount Royal based, Which, though its inward fires are extinct, Seems - in the flush of morning, indistinct, When misty shadows are across it chased, Over its flaky bosom pure and white,
Which glows and glistens in the early light,
Seems moved with passion. ‘Neath it thou art traced,
montreal
In winter’s jewelled brilliancy arrayed, With sparkling spire and glassy dome displayed:
A gem-wrought girdle on a maiden’s waist.
My father would say, “The Mountain’s out today!” …
Then we’d round the bend and sure enough, like Oz at the end of the road, or the biggest ice cream cone ever: Elegant flowing, pink with morning sun, the shapely mountain stood in our path, ...
Years later my father confessed about the cut in the trees on one stretch of the highway —where on a clear day, the mountain peeked through for an instant… She decides when she’ll grace us with her shape or when she’ll hide
…
This mountain stays. She is not only nature but wilderness and wildness, unfettered by choice or moral code. Tomorrow we will pour down her sides and leave this corporate body of timber and ice. But like a lover
pacific coast
whose scent we carry always, the mountain will reveal herself again through the cut in the trees of our daily lives – when folding laundry, sipping coffee, or checking e-mail.
... we’ll be filled with a restless longing, a primal urge, and slowly we’ll turn our faces toward the face of mighty Tahoma, forever stirred by what she holds.
The Vessel Christine Hemp
ROBERT
N. STEWART BRIDGE
MILL RACE PARK OBSERVATION TOWER
CUMMINS CORPORATE OFFICE BUILDING
BARTHOLOMEW COUNTY VETERANS MEMORIAL NORTH CHRISTIAN CHURCH
FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH + HENRY MOORE’S LARGE ARCH
SMOKEY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK DOWNTOWN CHARLESTON
BOONE HALL PLANTATION ARCHES NATIONAL PARK PROVO
GARDEN OF THE GODS NATURE CENTER
FALLINGWATER
BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK
DEVIL’S TOWER NATIONAL MONUMENT
BLACK HILLS NATIONAL FOREST
CHINATI FOUNDATION + MARFA
BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK
DOWNTOWN MONTREAL
at twentyfive
HABITAT 67
NOTRE-DAME BASILICA OF MONTREAL
SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK HOH RAINFOREST
ASH NICOLE
