In some ways, I have gotten used to days like today in Decatur, which seems at times a small town. And I had come to know serendipity and collaboration and assistance (Nell and I have often said that every time we found ourselves at the edge of our knowledge and know-how and reached out to ask for advice and guidance and, in some cases, specific help, everyone always obliged) in the throes of the Building on Dana project. Today was everything. And it was special.
One of our curricular projects for the Building on Dana / Patterns in Space exhibition on the building was an artists’ book, made by our students, finished by Nell and me. The project was, for me, a material and conceptual complement to the static 3D model that met visitors at the door. This dynamic 2D study put the building in its place, literally and metaphorically, by documenting and analyzing the position of the Dana Fine Arts Building along McDonough, looking more at what it means to/for the community than for the College. It is one of the parts of the project that meant to the most to me, as it is based on precedents that have been part of my research and teaching on art and architecture for decades (as the essay written by our students lays out, without personalizing it).
We started the Every Building project by meeting before Dawn and photographing the city from the sidewalk in the early morning hours of October 18, 2024. As we lingered, we ended up with photographs of kids walking and biking to school and crossing guards helping them, as they expertly and routinely do.
Two of the crossing guards ended up in the book, and it has been our intention to find them and offer them one of the few remaining copies from our edition of 20. That’s what finally happened this morning.
I was leaving Beacon Hill Middle School after supporting the Recycling Club as a new member of the PTA’s Sustainability Committee. This morning that meant working with one of the teachers to pick up trash on school property. (Admittedly I was feeling grateful that my son was not yet at school as I am confident that it would have been a “cringe” moment for him, and I am sure he has heard by now from the friends of his I greeted by name in the process.)
As I was heading home, Carolyn was at the corner of Kings Hwy and College Ave. And I decided to ask for her help. I explained the project and the task of identifying and locating the crossing guard we had photographed at the intersection of College Ave. and S. McDonough Streets. She told me that if I would wait for 10 minutes, we could go to Dana together and take a look at the publication. And she offered to pass the book along.
She drove me to campus, and I got back to the car with the book. We opened it, and found the figure in bright pink, whose being, to me, has always radiated joy from the page. She looked at it, and confirmed that she was the one that day at that crossing (I had thought so when I saw her this morning — but it has been 2 years ago and the images are rather small in the book).
So I was able to give the book to her directly. To explain its process and meaning. And I now have a date on the calendar to host Carolyn and any interested Decatur crossing guards for a private tour of the building. And she helped me identify Joe, who is also in the book, much smaller and more distant than Carolyn is. I will be looking for him with book in hand this afternoon. I am thrilled beyond measure.
Thank you, Carolyn Shorter, for making my day and for keeping our kids, pedestrians, and drivers in line with good cheer, clear commitment, and generous spirit.
UPDATE 3:20 p.m. I found Joe Safford. Thanks, Carolyn! And I was able to give him his copy just before Decatur High School released on a Friday afternoon (IYKYK). Joe told me that our book documents many of the places he has worked, starting with the MARTA station downtown over two decades ago. Thank you, Joe, for your dedication and your service. And especially for being so gracious and open to my arriving unannounced at your car window and offering you what appears, I think, as a somewhat unassuming publication. Yet as a collaborative, creative, critical, professional publication by 20 students, who imaged, researched, wrote, revised, repositioned its elements over several months, it represents, to me, the best of Agnes Scott College — and also of Decatur.
