PORTLAND, Maine — Mark Marchesi is aware of a factor or two about being priced out of a neighborhood. His grandparents left New York Metropolis for then-affordable Westchester County within the Fifties, however gentrification and skyrocketing housing costs finally drove his household out.
That’s why, when he noticed the identical factor beginning to occur in Portland, his adopted hometown for the reason that mid-Nineties, he knew he needed to do one thing.
In 2009, starting with the fast-changing waterfront, the artist started photographing the buildings and neighborhoods that made the town really feel particular, actual, genuine. Marchesi needed to doc Portland’s empty tons, industrial buildings and humble triple-decker condominium buildings earlier than all of them became drab, boring, box-like condos and resorts.
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Ten years on, he started publishing his spare, elegant images in a collection of three self-financed image books. The primary two runs of about 100 copies offered out quick. Now, the third will quickly be gone, too, identical to lots of the buildings featured within the books.
“A number of the locations that I photographed that at the moment are gone have been happenstance — like I didn’t know that they have been going to be gone inside just a few months. I simply stored taking footage of locations, and they might simply disappear,” Marchesi mentioned.
The primary place the place he remembers that occuring was Len’s Market, a famously rundown comfort retailer, with used footwear within the entrance window, which as soon as stood on Cumberland Avenue.
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“Then I noticed, ‘Wow, there’s one thing to this. There’s gonna be plenty of issues that we see now that will likely be disappearing,’” Marchesi mentioned.
Along with Len’s, longtime Portlanders will acknowledge different dearly departed metropolis staples preserved within the artist’s images, together with Paul’s Meals Heart, the outdated model of Joe’s Smoke Store, and a pair of spindly timber which used to grace Fort Allen Park on the East Finish.
The three books, every titled “Higher Portland,” are stuffed with a whole bunch of images representing hundreds of frames he shot over greater than a decade. Many of the photographs have been taken early within the morning, with stunning slanting mild, utilizing costly and finicky 4×5-inch colour movie.
Marchesi usually went again to the identical place many occasions, trying to find one of the best mild and circumstances.
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“This one,” he mentioned, pointing at a photograph of a constructing on Industrial Avenue, “I went again to that one at totally different occasions of the yr, day-after-day, although perhaps not consecutive days, till I obtained it with no automotive in entrance of it.”
Not a single human seems in Marchesi’s photographs. The pictures are devoted to bodily areas, solely — largely business and residential buildings, but in addition just a few interiors and concrete landscapes, as effectively.
“The factor that bugs me is the homogenization of structure — these [new] buildings don’t mesh with our conventional structure,” Marchesi mentioned. “It’s the identical in all places, not simply Portland. Its vernacular structure is dropping out to low-cost buildings due to quick revenue and a scarcity of expertise.”
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Marchesi mentioned he’s been happy along with his books’ recognition however is much more moved by how individuals join along with his footage. Generally, his photos deliver up sturdy feelings, reminding viewers of their private connections to Portland locations and areas the place essential elements of their lives came about.
“One time at a Maine Faculty of Artwork vacation sale, there have been these three women that have been trying via one of many books — they usually noticed the home they grew up in,” Marchesi mentioned. “That’s the half that has been actually cool.”
The artist mentioned he’s undecided if he’ll ever republish the now sold-out books. Marchesi mentioned he would love to gather all three in a single hardcover espresso desk e-book, however the price of publishing such a tome is prohibitive. Even promoting out the primary three books was only a break-even deal, at greatest. As a minimum, he’d prefer to sometime go away his work to the Maine Historic Society.
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Though there’s a palpable visible twinge of melancholy operating via the three books, Marchesi maintains that his work is just not meant to be a downer. Relatively, he mentioned, he simply desires to doc what now we have now, simply in case.
“That is extra like an ode than a eulogy,” he mentioned. “What I’m attempting to seize right here is just not disappearing altogether. You simply need to look tougher for it.”
The previous couple of copies of Marchesi’s third e-book can be found at Pinecone+Chickadee on Free Avenue in Portland. See extra of the artist’s work at his web site.