May 01, 2017

The David Ireland House

Where do we begin when talking about David Ireland?

For us it’s the Archive Room at 500 Capp Street, our curatorial office that was once the basement and Ireland’s favorite studio. An area he routinely excavated, utilizing the dirt and concrete as a source material for many artworks. The destabilized lower-level of the old Mission District, Victorian home he purchased in 1975 as a live/work that would change his art practice and life forever.

When 500 Capp Street reopened its doors as The 500 Capp Street Foundation in 2016, the house had undergone structural renovations. Today, one might hardly recognize the cave-like sanctuary, the contemporary garage or newly designed terrace, these redefined areas of the house that lend themselves to new possibilities, such as guided tours, public programs, and rotating exhibitions. It is within these walls that David Ireland’s story is cared for, loved, and researched.

Greatly influenced by Arte Povera and the Fluxus artists, David Ireland is a historic link in the Bay Area conceptualist school of the 1970’s; however, within this canon of art history, he’s located on the periphery. To quote artist and longtime friend Jock Reynolds, “David Ireland is one of the most influential artists you’ve never heard of.”

An unconventional artist working on the edge, always questioning what it means to create the images and objects we make, David Ireland eludes categorization; architecture becomes painting; painting becomes sculpture; sculpture becomes drawing.

To understand his practice, one must read the work as a tool that constantly builds and redefines the vocabulary of its making, in order to situate the work in real time and space — much like the building blocks of the text below, a letter in the form of a book written by Ireland to his sister Judy. We ask you, dear reader, to approach the following words as a work in progress.

— Bob and Diego

David Ireland’s House (1980), 2015; photo: Preston/Kalogiros; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland’s House (1980), 2015; photo: Preston/Kalogiros; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Page 1

500 Capp Street
San Francisco

December 2, 1980

Dearest:

You will not be able
to see my house, SO
I will tell you about it and how it is with
me.

Page 2

I don’t know how it
happened, and I keep
repeating this because
I don’t know how it
happened. When I came
to the house I didn’t
know what I was going to
do. I had lots to do
and there were things to
do and yet I didn’t know
what I was going to do.
It was not like coming
to a painting or a sculp-
ture or a photographic
image or something else
and saying to yourself;
this is what I want to
do. I was not without
motivation, and I was
not foundering for con-
cept. It was only that
I did not know what I
was going to do:  and
then it came to me and
I will tell you about it.

500 Capp Street exterior, c.1975; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

500 Capp Street exterior, c.1975; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Page 3

I was soon to write some-
thing for an exhibition
for a show at the Berkeley
Museum and I was telling
about my time in New York
and how it came clear to
me; it came so very clear
to me that the search for
the new art to be was as
much an act of folly as
the search for El Dorado
so long as it was clothed
in the context of art as
we know it.

There is nothing new
under the sun.

Matter cannot be created
or destroyed.

These bits of historic
wisdom were not immediate-
ly important to me, how-
ever the business of mat-
ter and its

Page 4

nature was to be import-
ant in the next year.

David Ireland’s studio, San Francisco, 1988; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland’s favorite studio, San Francisco, 1988; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Several things were
important about my time
in New York and one of
them contemplated in ret-
rospect continues to re-
inforce my position. It
was popular when I was in
graduate school to talk
about this thing that was
called, A PEAK EXPERIENCE.
I feel that I had one
while living in New York.
In school we only thought
that we had had one or
might have had one partic-
ularly if we were older.
If one were younger it
could be that the peak
experience was still to
visit us. What was it?
Was it rockets? Was it
a rush or a flash of
light or a dizzy spell?

David Ireland in his studio, San Francisco, 1988; photo: Suzanne Parker; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland in his favorite studio, San Francisco, 1988; photo: Suzanne Parker; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland’s studio, San Francisco, 1988; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland’s favorite studio, San Francisco, 1988; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Page 5

Was it like an orgasm?
What if you had never had
one? What if you never
were to have one? Could
you expect to never have
a peak experience? In
school you could drink a
lot of wine and trade off
possible peak experiences
trying as though it were
an old class in aesthetics
to unify experience with
the belief that it was the
same for all people.

I had my peak experience
at the Yale club. There
was a time many years be-
fore when I used to have
my hair cut at the Prince-
ton Club.  Now I was hav-
ing a peak experience at
the Yale Club. I would
have accepted years before
that one could have this
particular experience al-
most anywhere. I never

Page 6

went to Yale and I never
went to Princeton either
Before I tell you what
happened at the Yale Club
I will tell you what my
art was about at that
time and what my thoughts
were at that time and
then I will come back to
the Yale Club because it
is there that it happened
My work, and it was the
mid-seventies, was re-
duced to a very basic
choice of materials. The
action or application
might have been called
process, and I suppose
the work would have been
described as process work.

David Ireland making wall work for the exhibition 18 Bay Area Artists, Los Angeles institute of Contemporary Art, 1976; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland making wall work for the exhibition 18 Bay Area Artists, Los Angeles institute of Contemporary Art, 1976; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland making wall work for the exhibition 18 Bay Area Artists, Los Angeles institute of Contemporary Art, 1976; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland making wall work for the exhibition 18 Bay Area Artists, Los Angeles institute of Contemporary Art, 1976; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

I knew about process work
and what that meant in
critical terms. What I
was choosing to work with
at the time was dirt or

Page 7

dry cement, and I was
choosing this because it
was basic and universal
and stripped away most
color and refinement and
association. After this
choice of material I was
faced with the conflict of
presentation. I could not
bring myself to do some-
(thing) to it.   I underline this
because I didn’t want to
make arbitrary marks and
roads into the materials.
If I could have achieved
automatic application like
automatic writing then
that was what I was after.
I never was thinking about
medium or that I was work-
ing in dirt as medium.    I
was thinking about instru-
mentation and how it might
be possible to do nothing
to something. Certainly
my choice of cement was
arbitrary, however I was
not ranking it over

Page 8

another material.  I was
seeing it as a tool and
accordingly any material
or form of matter could
be equally effective as
a tool and this disolved
the argument or case for
arbitrary choice of mat-
erials. What remained as
an issue was the marks
that one put on the mater-
ial.  If I chose to make
a mark on the material
then I reduced it from
tool to medium. Seeing
all matter, marks on the
earth and space itself as
instrumentation was elim-
inating karma.   In this
sense I was feeling a
particular kind of weight
coming off of me in a
dimension that I was not
familiar with. A further
tanglement to this direc-
tion was the idea of per-
fection.  All things were

Page 9

perfect so long as I
could continue to see
them (things) as instru-
ments and quell the urge
to introduce my humanness
to the material/tool.

David Ireland repairing the sidewalk, 500 Capp Street, 1976; photo: Tom Marioni; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland repairing the sidewalk, 500 Capp Street, 1976; photo: Tom Marioni; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland repairing the sidewalk, 500 Capp Street, 1976; photo: Tom Marioni; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland repairing the sidewalk, 500 Capp Street, 1976; photo: Tom Marioni; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland repairing the sidewalk, 500 Capp Street, 1976; photo: Tom Marioni; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland repairing the sidewalk, 500 Capp Street, 1976; photo: Tom Marioni; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland repairing the sidewalk, 500 Capp Street, 1976; photo: Tom Marioni; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland repairing the sidewalk, 500 Capp Street, 1976; photo: Tom Marioni; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland repairing the sidewalk, 500 Capp Street, 1976; photo: Tom Marioni; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland repairing the sidewalk, 500 Capp Street, 1976; photo: Tom Marioni; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland repairing the sidewalk, 500 Capp Street, 1976; photo: Tom Marioni; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland repairing the sidewalk, 500 Capp Street, 1976; photo: Tom Marioni; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Here was clearly a cross-
road of some sort.  A
sage might quit his pur-
suit of his ideal. A per-
son of the sciences might
retire in the face of all
matter as perfection.
Dedication to the contin-
uum of the culture might
be folly.

In my studio I found that
I was repeating the same
Work each day.  I found
sufficient fascination
with this to consider
it worthwhile.  It did
seem terminal, however,
out of this daily kind of
ritual I was expecting

Page 10

to find content that
would stabilize my action
and make it clearly an
act of art. I have writ-
ten about this work before
and how it concluded, and
I will not repeat it ex-
cept to say that my view
of my work prior to this
realization was a neces-
sary ingredient to my
present position.

David Ireland, A Portion of: From the Year of Doing the Same Work Each Day, 1975; concrete and polymer on plastic; 70 ¾ x 44 inches; photo: M. Lee Fatherree; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland, A Portion of: From the Year of Doing the Same Work Each Day, 1975; concrete and polymer on plastic; 70 ¾ x 44 inches; photo: M. Lee Fatherree; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

The question that I had to
ask myself was, how was
the art that I had a
vision of to manifest
itself? The art action
needed to be supported
by evidence and at some
point this evidence had
to be offered to the
culture.  However, it was
imperative that the evi-
dence be offered out of
the art context.  It
could not be framed or

Page 11

supported by the usual
or traditional art
systems. The art would
clearly be invisible with-
out the usual dress.

If the source for art as
we know it is life, then
the source for the art to
follow would also be life.
The more important per-
formances of the past two
decades clearly tapped
the life source to a
point of questionable
visibility.

Front window, with gold leaf sign left by Paul Greup, the Swiss accordion maker who previously own 500 Capp Street; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Front window, with gold leaf sign left by Paul Greup, the Swiss accordion maker who previously own 500 Capp Street; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Jar with a slice of cake from Mr. Gordon’s ninety-fifth birthday. Daniel Gordon was the last tenant at 500 Capp Street and maintained a close relation to David Ireland after he moved out of the house on Capp street; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Jar with a slice of cake from Mr. Gordon’s ninety-fifth birthday. Daniel Gordon was the last tenant at 500 Capp Street and maintained a close relation to David Ireland after he moved out of the house on Capp street; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland, Broken Glass Repaired by Its Reflection, 1982; glass and mirror; 6 x 6 x 2 ½ inches; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland, Broken Glass Repaired by Its Reflection, 1982; glass and mirror; 6 x 6 x 2 ½ inches; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Contained in my thinking
about the art that I
wanted to be a part of
was the notion that it
would not be so necessary
to live in New York.  If
what I was to be doing
would be initially in-
visible then that would
be counter to the extreme
visibility of New York

Page 12

art and support system.

I have not used the word
“alternative”.  It was
never part of my vocabu-
lary and it has never en-
tered into my considera-
tion.  Whatever was to
come as art would be a
natural continuation of
the cultural projectile
that had been fired long
ago.  One might predict
the course and consider
that alterations would be
difficult.  Surely the
work would escape the contain-
ment of the culture.

Second level back parlor with jars of sand on the mantel and Elephant Stool (1978), 1978; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Second level back parlor with jars of sand on the mantel and Elephant Stool (1978), 1978; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Since you are still with
me, I will suspect that
you may be curious about
the Yale Club.  Or per-
haps you forgot that it
was there that I had this
particular thing happen

Page 13

that I am choosing to
call a peak experience.
Remember, I don’t claim
to know exactly what a
peak experience is.  I
only know that it was at
the Yale Club that I
heard these words that
sobered me like an elec-
tric shock.

The remarks themselves
were simple enough and
not complicated and they
came from Vincent Scully,
Dean of the College of
Art History at Yale.  Mr.
Scully was lecturing on
Louis I. Kahn who had
died the previous year.
In descibing Kahn and his
architecture Mr. Scully
said; “he wanted his
buildings to look like
they had not been design
-ed.”

Exterior view of The David Ireland House after undergoing structural renovations, 2015; photo: Henrik Kam; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Exterior view of The David Ireland House after undergoing structural renovations, 2015; photo: Henrik Kam; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

There it was and
those words stiffened me

Page 14

in my chair.  I could
test those words against
everything that I had
been thinking about in
the past months.  I could
look at my work and ask
myself if I had designed
it or altered it from its
existing perfection.  Had
I done more to it than
simply give it fuel or a
life of its own?  It was
also clear and there was
no way from hiding myself
or my work from the truth.
I knew that I wanted my
work to look like it had
not been designed.   I
wanted it to be without my in-
fluence.  Furthermore, it
caused me to consider
that creativity was an
issue of discovery.

That evening at the Yale
Club had a way of giving

Page 15

me some peace, and at
the same time it imposed
upon me a responsibility
that comes with the trum-
pets of the veritable
truth.

It seems now without re-
membering exactly, that I
spent another two or
three months in my studio
in New York enjoying the
revelation that had a way
of keeping me a little
motionless.  In this time
I decided to return to
San Francisco which I had
left almost a year ago.
This happened then in
the middle of the summer
of 1975.

Exterior view of 500 Capp Street, 1976; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Exterior view of 500 Capp Street, 1976; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

In San Francisco before
the end of the year I
found this old house
which I was fortunate
enough to be able to

Page 16

buy.  If I thought that
I could keep you with me
long enough I would con-
vince you that I was not
looking for this house.
It came to me.  So we
found each other in the
way that one meets a
special person.  So, I
take you once more to my
opening remark where I
said, that I don’t know
how it happened, and I
didn’t know what I was
going to do with it and
I did not know that it
would become my focus for
the next few years.

David Ireland working inside 500 Capp Street, c.1976; photo: Steven Kayfetz; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland working inside 500 Capp Street, c.1976; photo: Steven Kayfetz; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

A friend gave me a copy
of Gaston Bachelard’s
“The Poetics of Space”.
Early in the book I
read, “In every dwelling,
even the richest, the
first task of the phenom-
enologist is to find the
original  shell”.  I

Page 17

was not thinking of my-
self as a phenomenologist
however the idea of find-
ing the original shell
appealed to me, and I
tested the implication
of that idea against what
I had learned in New York
It seemed that perhaps I
could carve away at the
interior of this old
house.  Instead of mark-
ing it with my influence
I could counter-mark it
and unearth the scars of
all those who had been
there before me.

David Ireland cleaning the window trim in the front parlor room at 500 Capp Street, c.1976; photo: Steven Kayfetz; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland cleaning the window trim in the front parlor room at 500 Capp Street, c.1976; photo: Steven Kayfetz; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland cleaning the window frame of the front parlor room at 500 Capp Street, c.1976; photo: Steven Kayfetz; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland cleaning the window frame of the front parlor room at 500 Capp Street, c.1976; photo: Steven Kayfetz; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Front parlor room windows with trim removed and arrangement of weights, 1977; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Front parlor room windows with trim removed and arrangement of weights, 1977; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Brooms found in every corner of every room inside 500 Capp Street, leaning against the back parlor room wall, c.1976; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Brooms found in every corner of every room inside 500 Capp Street, leaning against the back parlor room wall, c.1976; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland working inside 500 Capp Street, c.1976; photo: Steven Kayfetz; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland working inside 500 Capp Street, c.1976; photo: Steven Kayfetz; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland sanding the floor of the upstairs front parlor room at 500 Capp Street, c.1977; photo: Steven Kayfetz; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland sanding the floor of the upstairs front parlor room at 500 Capp Street, c.1977; photo: Steven Kayfetz; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Upstairs black parlor at 500 Capp Street, 1977; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Upstairs black parlor at 500 Capp Street, 1977; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

I began by carefully
cleaning the entire
space; five bedrooms and
the usual other rooms
that form most houses.
After removing the im-
mediate skin of the
prior occupant, I washed,

Page 18

and I washed with the
care that goes with the
last shrouded bath in
the Ganges.  Then I was
ready to strip and I took
away layers of carpet and
layers of wallpaper and I
found gouges that I was
sure were from glaciers
that had ripped through
the hallways and chambers
of this house.  I was
after the real bone of
this abode and with it I
was finding the marks of
old architectural styles.
I was finding the evi-
dence of old doorways
that went to rooms that
no longer existed. I
was seeing the effects
of earthquakes that
ripped long, wide fizz-
ures in the white chalky
cliff-like walls.  And
then there was a stain.  It

Page 19

was mostly stained.
Yellow stain that I saw
as signatures of a tem-
pest that had come
through weaker parts of
the roof.

Ceiling of 500 Capp Street, 1978; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Ceiling of 500 Capp Street, 1978; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

I was after something
more and while I thought
I knew what that was, I
was not completely sure.
I would have to take the
chance that might not
be repairable if it
failed.  While I was
carving at the bone, I
felt that I wanted to
separate this contain-
ment from the comfort-
able recess that makes
a home.

View of front parlor room at 500 Capp Street, with applied polyurethane varnish on the walls and ceiling, c.1977; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

View of front parlor room at 500 Capp Street, with applied polyurethane varnish on the walls and ceiling, c.1977; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

View of the back parlor room at 500 Capp Street, with applied polyurethane varnish on the floor, walls and ceiling, c.1977; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

View of the back parlor room at 500 Capp Street, with applied polyurethane varnish on the floor, walls and ceiling, c.1977; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

View of the back and front parlor floor at 500 Capp Street with applied polyurethane varnish, c.1977; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

View of the back and front parlor floor at 500 Capp Street with applied polyurethane varnish, c.1977; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Front parlor room with David Ireland’s South China Chairs (also known as South China Paintings) (1978-1979) and Broom Collection (1978). Ireland would later add a concrete base with a copper stand, changing the name to Broom Collection with Boom (1978-1988), 1980; photo: Simo Neri; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Front parlor room with David Ireland’s South China Chairs (also known as South China Paintings) (1978-1979) and Broom Collection (1978). Ireland would later add a concrete base with a copper stand, changing the name to Broom Collection with Boom (1978-1988), 1980; photo: Simo Neri; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

I wanted the
space to speak of its
history.  I wanted the
marks and scars to be
like the trails of civ-
ilizations that had

Page 20

passed through.  I
wanted you to see this
and not search out traces
of architectural com-
pleteness or restoration.
To achieve this I strip-
ped away the window trim
that was named for a
queen that we never knew.
I ripped up the baseboard
and let the walls float
free from the floor and
now they were frescoes
with a new presence and
different from the in-
tentions of the maker.
And there were relics.
Relics everywhere.  They
were there always wait-
ing to be uncovered by
the gentle whisk of a
soft broom.

David Ireland, Broom Collection (1978), 1986; photo: Abe Frajndlich; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland, Broom Collection (1978), 1986; photo: Abe Frajndlich; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Red cabinet with cans, nd; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Red cabinet with cans, nd; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland, Three-Legged Chair, 1978; wood chair, journal, and metal chain; 30 ½ x 18 x 17 inches; photo: Abe Frajndlich; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland, Three-Legged Chair, 1978; wood chair, journal, and metal chain; 30 ½ x 18 x 17 inches; photo: Abe Frajndlich; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

View of upstairs hallway with Three-Legged Chair (1978) and Delection (1980), 1981; photo: Henry Bowles; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

View of upstairs hallway with Three-Legged Chair (1978) and Delection (1980), 1981; photo: Henry Bowles; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland, Collection of Relics with Mike Rody’s Ink Cans, 1976-1978; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland, Collection of Relics with Mike Rody’s Ink Cans, 1976-1978; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland, Hollywood Strings, n.d.; glass jar, string, wire and cement; 12 ½ x 7 x 7 inches; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland, Hollywood Strings, n.d.; glass jar, string, wire and cement; 12 ½ x 7 x 7 inches; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Tape recorder, newspaper and jar with rubber bands, c.1977; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Tape recorder, newspaper and jar with rubber bands, c.1977; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Tape recorder, newspaper, jar with rubber bands on wooden stool, c. 1977; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Tape recorder, newspaper, jar with rubber bands on wooden stool, c. 1977; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland, Rubber Band Collection with Sound Accompaniment (1977), 1986; rubber bands, glass jar, wire, wood stool, wood molding, tape recorder, and earphones; 54 ½ x 20 ½ x 13 ½ inches; photo: Joe Schopplein; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

David Ireland, Rubber Band Collection with Sound Accompaniment (1977), 1986; rubber bands, glass jar, wire, wood stool, wood molding, tape recorder, and earphones; 54 ½ x 20 ½ x 13 ½ inches; photo: Joe Schopplein; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

I will tell you of these
relics when I write to
you again for they are

Page 21

important because they
speak of man perhaps the
ZinJan man and others.
They show men and his
systems and I want you
to know of them.  Through
the relics I could chart
the conduct of the
players before me.  For
now I want to tell you
that it was important for
me to seal this tomb for
the living.  Believe me
I honed and stroked those
surfaces being careful
to maintain every chip
though they were stone
tools.  So I stabilized
it; I sealed it forever
to protect it from the
arbitrary attacks of the
future.

Upstairs front parlor room, 500 Capp Street, c.1993; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Upstairs front parlor room, 500 Capp Street, c.1993; photo: David Ireland; image courtesy of The 500 Capp Street Foundation.

So it is there like a
specimen if you want to
think of it that way.

Page 22

You may inspect it under
the painted glass.  And
if you spend some time
with the house it will
glow for you in the
warmth of the afternoon
sun.

It is complete
while it need not be, and
that is what man can do.
He can complete things if
He wants to.

Comments (1)

  • quico antonio lostaunau says:

    luv the photos of the red file cabinet and the jar filled with rubber bands….magnificent!

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