Beautiful Decay

My sweetheart, Paul Clancy, has new work at the Candita Clayton Studio in RI. The show, Four Thought, is comprised of work by Allison Paschke, Agata Michalowska, and Graham Heffernan. Paul's photos often find the beauty in the natural decay of architecture. Sometimes I can see loss in the beauty and sometimes hope. This particular collection of work has special meaning because his subject was the antique yacht club in Edgewood, RI and the caretakers cottage next door. The cottage was the last house he shared with his children and wife at the time. In February of this year the yacht club was struck by lightening and burned to it's pilings. Paul and I visited soon after and went into the cottage that the yacht club was renovating. It was my first time in this home that meant so much to him and his first time in 8 years. It was humming with volunteer workers and had already been stripped to it's antique lathing. The huge loss of the yacht club caused the group to focus it's efforts on what they could repair, the cottage. The photos are on raised boxes and the sculptures are made from dumpster retrieved lathing. This work, Shaw Avenue Cairns, is Paul's response to the past and present of those structures. I do have a major crush on this man and his art. Here's a link to Greg Cook's article in the Phoenix. He likes Paul's work too.