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Owls Head | 
 enlarge | Author: Rosamond Wolff Purcell
Publisher: Quantuck Lane Press
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $14.88
You Save: $10.12 (40%)
New (7) Used (7) from $12.14
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 792759
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0971454868
Dewey Decimal Number: 770.92
EAN: 9780971454866
ASIN: 0971454868
Publication Date: November 11, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
A derelict antiques and scrap metal business in Owls Head, Maine is the setting of this multi-layered word-portrait of its owner, William Buckminster, proprietor of an extraordinary collection of discarded and decaying items, no-longer-functioning remnants of previous lives. Buckminster's world, which includes both his vaunted talents in the local pool halls and his sure knowledge of the seemingly endless number of fascinating objects from his vast supply, are inspiration for Purcell's carefully crafted meditation on collecting and entropy, and the signals both send to those who are willing to pay attention. Rosamond Purcell is a photographer best known for her work in the back rooms of natural history museums.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Collecting, Antiquities and "Other People's Junk" June 30, 2008
You will never feel guilty again when you collect. After reading this book I will pick up anything anywhere that means something to me - no matter what others might think!
 A surreal trip to a small piece of Maine December 6, 2004
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
Rosamond Purcell's photography class was on a field trip when she and her students first came upon William Buckminster's land. The eccentric antiques / junk dealer of Owls Head, Maine, had eleven acres of stuff piled high, in mounds and mounds, in and around several buildings. At first the artist in Purcell was intrigued; she was moved to photograph individual objects or random groupings of items. Then at various times over 20 years, she continued to stop to buy things and to talk to Buckminster himself. She took the items back to her own studio in Boston, where she arranged and rearranged them into her own special kind of artwork. And we're not talking about "whole" objects here -- rather, they include broken toys, books in varying stages of disintegration, pieces of furniture, old lobster traps, window frames, rusted parts of machinery.
Gradually Buckminster took on a near-mentor role for Purcell, and it's obvious the two vastly different people came to care about each other. She took him to museums and doctor?s appointments, he took her to pool halls. And as they climbed around the junk piles and investigated nooks and crannies in the buildings, Purcell learned more about Buckminster's personal history. The result is a kind of dual biography pressed against the backdrop of both the antique business and the art world, sometimes questioning which is which.
Some of Purcell's b&w photos accompany the text. But only the photo printed on the cover flyleaves gives us a grander perspective, as a wide shot of the property shows a pile of indecipherable objects stretching from one building to the next, one story high. Reading this book could be a nightmare for neat freaks. It can be heartening to those of us who are ordinary pack rats by comparison; for even after just a few pages, we can say to ourselves, "Well, at least I'm not THAT bad."
This is an unusual book, and it's difficult to nail down what audience it might appeal to. Fellow photographers may be interested in Purcell's process and artist's eye. Fans of Maine life might enjoy the depiction of the eccentricity of a real Down Easter. Still others might enjoy a respite from typical genres. You will certainly look at junk yards differently after reading this one.
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