Newburyport Lock-up and Other Arcanities...

Like each of us, no city has just one personality. 

Take Newburyport, Massachusetts, for instance. They've the sprawling wharf strung along Newburyport Harbor, the bustling post-Victorian downtwon business district, The Fire House Center for the Arts, The Newburyport Art Association, The Screening Room and the recently re-configured Fowle's Restaurant, a treasured local icon.

"Newburyport Lock-up"
Photo by Ross Bachelder, 2012

But have you looked beyond the usual tourist-feeding attributes of this proud, self-consciously trendy city with its street-by-street panorama of sea captain houses and rich nautical history -- beyond the quiet splendor of Maudslay State Park or the intellectual vigor of Plum Island's renowned Joppa Center? One must see the neglected nooks and crannies of a city to fully comprehend and appreciate its esthetic thumbprint.

"The Shadow"
Photo by Ross Bachelder

Think small.  Think of long-neglected, out-of-the-way things -- things created not by MFA-driven artists or Chamber of Commerce drum-bangers but by the day-by-day, prosaic warp and woof of a society unselfconsciously maintaining and improving itself -- and you'll have discovered a new and exhilarating way of taking the fullblown pulse of a community -- a place that's always much more than what the slick, profit-hungry travel brochures say it is.

[Commentary in Progress... 11 27 12]