Visual Arts: Refuge in Ruins

Originally published in The New Southern Fugitives.

“For a man’s home is his castle, and each man’s home is the safest refuge.”

Sir Edward Coke

A flood of development swamped us with subdivision upon subdivision. There were countless Estates, Manors, Preserves, Groves, Lakes, Streams, Pines, Oaks, Pointes, Stations and Bridges upon Ridges.

The streets in these neighborhoods were teeming with abandoned foreclosures, weed covered lawns and empty dirty windows staring out at the curb with dull lifeless eyes.

When change arrived it was too late for many to break through the attic ceiling to get to the roof for financial safety.

The surviving families still thumbed through their mail-order catalogs and the Sunday circulars, tingling at the slick ads. Later they hid their unopened mail further under the daily clutter, piling up higher and higher on the counter.