Owls Head: On the Nature of Lost Things

by Rosamond Wolff Purcell

A derelict antiques and scrap metal business in Owls Head, Maine, is the setting of this multi-layered word-portrait of its owner, William Buckminster, proprietor of an extraordinary collection of discarded and decaying items, no-longer-functioning remnants of previous lives. Buckminster's world, which includes both his vaunted talents in the local pool halls and his sure knowledge of the seemingly endless number of fascinating objects from his vast supply, are inspiration for Purcell's carefully crafted meditation on collecting and entropy, and the signals both send to those of us willing to pay attention. 34 duotone footnote photographs.

Genres: Biography, Art, Nonfiction, Photography

224 pages, Paperback

First published November 11, 2003

About the author

Rosamond Wolff Purcell is an American photographer.

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rosamond Purcell is a wonderful eccentric artist whose book is rich and dense with details of the detritus of things cast off and decaying as found in the acres of the junkyard known as Owl's Head. She has a passion and the prose to describe what we ordinarily turn away from.
The book is a nice companion to the film about her work, An Art That Nature Makes. She is published in several larger books about the extraordinary collections she has discovered and documented through her unique photography and about which she writes. Purcell is a unique talent, and it begins with Owl's Head. I had the opportunity to interview her in her studio. That interview is here:
http://artsfuse.org/152244/film-previ...

[Jaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

NPR interview from 2004:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...

[Gina Rheault · Rating 4 out of 5]

A memoir of Rosalind Purcell, a Boston based artist, about her decades of sourcing art material -- read other people's decay and junk -- from the junkyard of William Buckminster in Owls Head, Maine. Although the writing is a little awkward it is heartfelt, and detailed description, gathered over the decades of scavenging trips to Buckminster's mountains and mountains of things, leaves you with a wonderful story.

Details, details are what make this book interesting. And though I cringed at times, feeling that Buckminster himself was being shown off as some sort of eccentric 'find' to Purcells' city-folk friends, I think its not my place to comment. He could hold his own, and could comment well enough himself, and he'd probably say of Purcell something like, "Well, she kept coming back, and it always worked out in the end' . This is a story that John McPhee could have written up in the New Yorker had he gotten to it first. But he didn't -- and Rosalind Williams did. Kudos to the author. Well done.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-read for collectors, artists and anyone who just sees the objects of the world in another way.

[Lynnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating reading. Detritus as Art

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much enhanced because I had recently seen a museum exhibit of her life’s work. But beautifully written on its own.

[Patience Blythe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who loves junk so much that they gather it from dusty street bins, collect it from shelves in rotten old barns, and form it into beautiful artworks that are more than the sum of their parts? If this sentence intrigues you, read this book.

[Hugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could give six stars for this book; I love its combination of particularity and decay.

[M Wiegers]

Love her photos. Must learn context.

[Kirsten Turner · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was fun until it wasn't, endless lists of junk, and her buying them and making displays! Not my thing I guess though I do love junk and antique shops. Just too much! A few chapters is enough.

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A photographer of exquisite decay meets an obsessive collector of "junk".