A Vanishing Present

Fortunately, They Had Sewn a Suit of Tomato Seeds
In-camara In-camera panograph for archival pigment print, edition 3+1, 48” wide

Party Risk

Hollywood is a Verb

Night of the Hunter

Moral Suasion

Tennyson Woodbridge’s early Heads I Win…Tails You Lose securitization of mortgage debt strategy was only emboldened following the high profile insider trading arrest of Martha Stuart in 2003. Woodbridge’s assessment of the celebrity arrest suggested infinitely larger parties would now be safe from facing similar distractions and he famously quoted: Do not bother fame over fortune when it comes to the banking henhouse…now that the hawks have made a meal of Martha!

Party Risk (Tennyson and the Horse He Rode In On)
Persona portrait photographs, 2018 (series of 3; edition of 3)
Copyright © Tennyson Woodbridge, 1963 to present. All appropriation rights reserved

A Frailty of Meadow

Paulette Lutier (aka Pollie), B. Lyon, France, 1878. D. New York City, 1916. French botanist and early coup de grâce activist. Authored Gracieux/Miséricordieux (un Anomalie de l'Esprit), 1908; Une Leçon de Kind, 1913; A Frailty of Meadow, 1915. At her time of death in 1916 Lutier was thought to be suffering from an exotic form of Nightshades disease. She was 38. 

References and Further reading:
1. European Journal of Forest Pathology; Springer, ISSN 0300-1237 (printed), ISSN 1573-8469
2. Maladies of Shade, Pignon Press, 1933
3. Special issue on Clubroot and Blackleg Diseases of Brassicas - Foreword; Elke Diederichsen, Geoffrey R. Dixon… (July 2016)

Categories: Euthanasia

A Frailty of Meadow
Found photo + narrative text; 2016-17
Copyright © Tennyson Woodbridge, 1963 to present. All appropriation rights reserved

Saint Abigail of Utmost Faith

Saint Abigail:
-Old testament matriarch
-Patron saint of beekeepers
-And seen here - Saint Abigail Prinsloo in 1948: The Patron Saint of Utmost Faith

Saint Abigail of Utmost Faith
Found Photograph, 12 May, 2014
Copyright © Tennyson Woodbridge, 1963 to present. All appropriation rights reserved

Benoit of Comberbach

Champion defender for The Great Lawsuit (1843), Benoit Woodbridge Comberbach (of Comberbach) would eventually pen By Order of Understanding in the late 19th century (a transformative legal doctrine better known as Clemency and Commiseration in the 20th century and simply, Druthers for Others, or how it is referred to today).

Benoit of Comberbach, 1872
2015, found tintype
Copyright © Tennyson Woodbridge, 1963 to present. All appropriation rights reserved

The Family Crest Of Thomas Middleditch

Chiefly set in the hundred of Pimhill, Myddle Castle was built perhaps 1308, by Lord John Le Strange. The castle would ultimately collapse into ruin during the earthquake of 1688, but recognition of the Middleditch family crest would only grow. Spelling variations eventually included: Middle, Midel, Mittel, Mittle, Middler, Midlar and Thomas Middleditch.

The Family Crest of Thomas Middleditch
October, 2015; found tintype
Copyright © Tennyson Woodbridge, 1963 to present. All appropriation rights reserved

M. Castleton’s Tin

His is the shock of being able to see into the future, seeing us gazing back at him and yet (frozen in tin) unable to engage.

We can look him over in a myriad of ways, even flip him over if we like, but M. Castleton cannot move, cannot even blink. We feel sorry for him. In a future near, our brains will be scanned in their entirety, all 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion connections, so that people in the further future (if we could recognize them as that), will be able to fully engage with our holographic avatar universe. In that sense, they will possess our "soul," our every thought and memory we one time held—yet without all the aches and pains, sunken dreams and sorrows. Our "soulmind," will operate perpetually in some petri dish, on a decorative computer chip in the bathroom by the foyer, or on a living room mantle like grandpa’s ashes—an endless tranquil think-tank, a digital universe—caught in our own uniquely familiar, infinite gaze.

This is what we see in the eyes of M. Castleton’s tin. Our children’s children will have children, and their children will feel sorry for us, up there above the mantle and caught suspended as we are, no longer evolving in perpetuity, as will be their custom. Soon enough in the future our avatar universe will not lie merely static, but will continue to flourish with thought and idea—in essence, will continue to “grow” mentally, forever after our corporeal existence has (or maybe hasn’t) passed.

This is what we’ll see in the eyes of M. Castleton’s tin. These are the nebulous thoughts he’ll hurdle forth through time and space. His perpetual deer-in-the-headlights vogue, as he once queried into a primitive soul-catching device, a camera contraption, an early memory gatherer. M. Castleton will be grasping, in one timeless moment, as the aperture dawned and a flash of light blasted, this unlikely if not unthinkable future was right there up in his grill—glaring him in the face.

M. Castleton’s Tin, 1906 - 2015
Found tintype, 2014 + collaborative written history (Jay Jurisich and Tennyson Woodbridge), 22 January, 2015.

M. Castleton’s Tin is a collaboration between Jay Jurisich and Tennyson Woodbridge and may be reproduced in part or in full, expressly or unexpressly for an open period of 75 years; after which point any use is strictly forbidden.

The Wake of Tara Belmont

The Wake of Tara Belmont
2015, found photographs, digital text
Copyright © Tennyson Woodbridge, 1963 to present. All appropriation rights reserved

Calm Balm

On March 6, 1853, exactly all of 550 passengers climbed safely onto the beach while fourteen chests of gold were salvaged as the S.S. Tennessee steamship broke itself apart.

On December 29, 2012, the landmark arch at Tennessee Cove collapsed, forever affecting a photographic landmark made popular for more than 150 years.

And seen here, January 19, 2015, few seemed even concerned and none much worse for wear.

Arley and Sylvia Savage

ARLEY and SYLVIA SAVAGE

Ignoring the strict avalanche warning signs, Arley and Sylvia Savage, as well as their close friend Bob proceeded toward the basin. Twenty minutes later and buried alive, Arley had a moment to think.

Found photo w vellum collage, 2011 (prose from 1988), 50x60 cm
Copyright © Tennyson Woodbridge, 1963 to present

Stuart Bedford Said Nothing (1985/2014)

Stuart Bedford Said Nothing

Stuart Bedford Said Nothing as his wife came out of the plane and into his arms.
Suddenly Stuart recognized an old friend. "Stan! Stan Goldsmith—how are you? I knew you'd turn up somewhere but what are you doing here?"
"I'm on vacation," Stan replied, looking at Stuart's wife. "This must be your lovely wife."
"Oh yes, this is my wife Audra. She's just returned from Chicago."
"Chicago? I just came in from Chicago. We must have been on the same plane—though I can't see how I wouldn't have noticed you."
Stan winked as Audra gave a short smile. She recognized him as the man who'd asked for a second meal over Denver.

Stuart Bedford Said Nothing
Photograph, October, 2014; prose from 1985
Copyright © Tennyson Woodbridge, 1963 to present

Wilford Prescott

Wilfred bore a son, Reginald Prescott, who would wed happily. Moments before his death at South Hadley.

Wilford Prescott; Found photograph + narrative prose, September, 2012

Herald Moribund Sparks

...October, 2012

Regarding Leland Thankful Smith, by Reverend Efrem Wentworth Brightly

Falling back on his better judgement, the Reverend Efrem Wentworth Brightly collapsed in mid-speech...

It was ne'er the tragedy, so becoming today, where men wept with but stoic fury. Having laid to rest their epidemic fate…

Leland Thankful Smith, 16 May, 1863
Narrative prose with found ambrotype, 2014