On Failure
Studios, Steel beams and Septic Tanks
All Kinds Of Commas is a newsletter from photographer Eric Ryan Anderson. It’s about creative work, sustained practice, and the unexpected places curiosity can take you. Stories from the studio, the archive and the road.
A few years ago, after forcing my daughters to go hiking with me, I drove past a building.
Well.. building might be a generous term. Once upon a time, this had been a building. A garage. Body shop, perhaps. A few big garage doors, cement block construction. Just the kind of place that catches the eye of people like me.
I have a long history of walking into decrepit old buildings and immediately moving in, mentally. My wife loves it : ) As a sixth grader in Texas, I remember finding an abandoned gas station for sale and I spent weeks drawing floor plans for the baseball card shop my friend Adam and I were destined to build. Something about the symmetry, the passage of time, the raw materials, the old hand painted signage… I truly don’t know why I love places like this so much.
Anyway, I found myself returning to this building and eventually gathered the will to jump a fence and walk around back, see what this thing was.
Jumanji comes to mind. Or some kind of post war footage from Eastern Europe.
It was not, shall we say, move in ready.
But boy, did I love it.
I dragged friends, peers, contractors, parents and my own kids to this place… I drew floor plans, met with zoning officials, mocked up facades and learned SketchUp. And six months later, against all advice, I tracked down the owner and bought it.
I could really see it! We could save this place and build a dream studio. I even told country singer Kane Brown about it, since he lives down the street. Sigh.
The failing roof was an easy first thing to tackle… Let’s get that off, clean things up and see what the bones really look like. The roof came down, but along with it, the support beams, the back wall and half the building.
Pretty quickly, it was clear that this was not going to work… At least in the way I’d envisioned it. Time marches on and the seasons come and go… Every few weeks I’ll stop by and walk the property, see what kind of trash has been dumped or who might be sleeping in the “building” for a few nights. My wife calls it “the roofless building we own” and my daughters… Well who knows what their memory of this place will be.
But every time I stop by, I remember why I fought so hard to buy this place. I still see the vision, even if it came tumbling down at the first step.
Last year, I had someone clear the land behind the “building.” We finally found a solid septic tank and peeled back a ton of brush, leaving a really nice little piece of land with two great Magnolia trees and one half of an old commercial building.
The roof had failed. The walls had failed. The dream had failed.
But was the project a failure? I don’t really see it that way. The floor plans are still on my hard drive. The vision was real, even if the building wasn't quite. I’m pretty sure we only get one “take” to live this life, and if mine is spent dreaming about old buildings and “wasting” hours drawing mockups and floor plans I never use… I’m good with that.
Life has a way of clarifying what you actually need versus what you imagined needing. And this year, I need to simplify a bit and move on to the next dream.
In an effort to do that, we’re going to list this property next week. It’s about twenty minutes from downtown Nashville in a wonderfully weird little place called White’s Creek. There’s a grocery store around the corner and it’s within walking distance of Joelton Feed & Farmacy, the greatest hardware-store-turned-honky-tonk you’ll ever find. If you know anyone looking for a little land outside of Nashville, send them my way. I’ll even include the floor plans.
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Portfolio Site: ericryananderson.com
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Sunnyside Projects: sunnysideprojects.com
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