I won a Tennessee State Art Grant to go photograph one of my favorite places, the Hotel Chelsea. I went there in March, armed with my camera and tripod and extra memory sticks and batteries and hope and dreams and wonder. The hotel was taken over by new management. Stanley Bard, a man who watched so many artists and musicians and life and death pass through that lobby would not be there. I was a bit tentative about the hotel losing..something. so when I got there I was amazed at how it felt like it always did. They were friendly and accommodating and showed me several rooms, letting me choose the one I wanted. I chose 317. It's a red room right by the Chelsea sign, with a bay window and those huge windows opened and I could hang out over 23rd Street and almost touch the big "A". It amazed me that this room had a flat screened HD television. Was this the Chelsea? Yes it was. And it was the same, yet parts were better. I felt as though the hotel embraced me. But then, I've felt embraced by the place even long before I knew where it was. It originally was an old house in a dream I had ages ago when I was a young teen. All I knew was I had to get upstairs. Again, I thought this was a house with many rooms.

I was thinking about posting a picture every day that I come in here and talk about it, hoping to open up some creative channels and get me really thinking of this project, but so far, all I do is stare at the pictures. I have so many favorites there's no way to pick one just yet. I took almost 1,000 photographs, knowing that I might not get back there for a very long time. It's so expensive...not unless Tn Arts Counsel would let me apply again for the same grant. I don't think that's allowed. Oh well...

So for now I just gaze at these. And none of them have been photoshop'ed or enhanced in any way yet. That picture there, that's what it looks like. I don't know where all the colors are coming from.

After I get used to writing again, and really speaking what I see and hear in my head, then I'll say more than I am at the moment. I still feel like all my words are stuck.