beautiful project

Jon Crispin's Willard Project is really stunning.

This is part of an ongoing photo project by Jon to document the suitcases left by the people who lived in the Willard Asylum in upstate New York.

"In 1995, the New York State Museum was moving items out of the Willard Psychiatric Center in Willard, NY which was being closed by the State Office of Mental Health. It would eventually become a state-run drug rehabilitation center. Craig Williams and his staff became aware of an attic full of suitcases in the pathology lab building. The cases were put into storage when their owners were admitted to Willard sometime between 1910 and the 1960s. And since the facility was set up to help people with chronic mental illness, these folks never left. An exhibit of a small selection of the cases was produced by the Museum and was on display in Albany in 2003. It was very moving to read the stories of these people, and to see objects from their lives before they became residents of Willard."







There is some question to what Maude's tools were used for, but I'm fairly certain she was a book maker. The leather tools, glues and binding threads look very familiar to what I've played around with in book making projects. I also suspect she may have set some type in her day as the wood photo'd looks to be "furniture" the wood spacers used in typesetting [which I still use today]. She definitely was an artisan.

to see a small video about his project please click here. I wish I had known about his Kickstarter project while it was still going. It makes me happy that he raised more than double the money he had set out to with his goal.

thanks to Aubrey Road for the intro to his project