Rural Renewal: Act I

Here is a picture of the historic farmhouse on APA Road.  This picture was taken in 2008.  The first picture I took of this house was back in maybe 2003, before I had a digital camera.  The house looked very worn out at the time, but not so derelict as it did in 2008.  The house sits in the center of a large, undeveloped, untenanted parcel of land, several acres of it.  It used to be a farm, but not in my 15-year-old memory, of course.  It has never been tenanted in my memory.  It is just another of the many abandoned houses here on the Point that struggle along and alone until someone stops their struggle by tearing them down.

Early in the 2000's, I made 16 or so quilts based upon the abandoned houses of Point Roberts.  By 2010, the quilts remain, but at least half of the houses that brought the quilts into existence have permanently exited this world.  The abandoned houses that remain are mostly getting worse, what with rain and cold and wind and time making their inexorable inroads. 

This is the quilt that memorialized the APA Road farmhouse in 2004. Back in 2004, plywood covered some of the windows, but not all of them.  By 2008, most of the plywood was gone.

And this is the APA Road farmhouse in 2010.  It is heading to restoration, not degradation, and not disappearance.  It is a bright, bright sign in our landscape.  And when Lorne is done with it, I'll make another quilt of it for him, to thank him for what he has done.