Stillwater Farm

I spent some time this week at one of my favorite places in Sterling. The Stillwater Farm goes back to 1790 and over my 21 years I have visited it a lot. It is protected by the state, but it unfortunately does not get the funding needed to restore it - only the money needed to keep it from collapsing. Time has left its mark on the barn and house and I find it really interesting to see how the structures age. This photo is of one of the windows on the front of the barn and shows some of that age. The cracking wood trim, cobwebs, and peeling paint all tell a story about the life of this building. One of the ideas I have for the semester long project I have to do for my photography class is to document and show the details of the numerous barns of New England. In a way I feel this fits into my other idea of photographing small private junkyards and old cars since both fit into the old Yankee mentality of holding onto things in case they are needed later or because of being too lazy to get rid of them in the first place. There are plenty of barns to photograph in the area that are in varying degrees of decay so that may be one direction to go in.