Description
PRINCETON ARCHITECTURAL PRESS A Year of Mornings 2008 Edition by Maria Vettese, Stephanie Congdon Barnes
The morning hours before the hustle and bustle of the day commences is the perfect time to pause and enjoy a sense ofrenewal and vitality. On the morning of December 7, 2006, Maria Alexandra Vettese and Stephanie Congdon Barnes eachtook a digital photo of everyday objects randomly arranged on their kitchen tables and, unbeknownst to one another,uploaded them to the website Flickr. Noticing a remarkable similarity between their images, they agreed to documenttheir mornings by posting onephoto to a shared blog every weekday for a year. Their site, 3191 (http://3191.visualblogging.com)named after the distance in miles between their homes in Portland, Maine, and Portland, Oregonquickly acquired a worldwide following of devotees fascinated by the magical coincidences and pictorial synchronicity of their photographic pairings.A Year of Mornings collects 236 imagesalways taken before 10 am without discussion between the two womenfrom this uniquely 21st-century artistic collaboration. The intimacy of these photographsdiscarded clothing, a view of a snowy day from the window, a tableclothcombined with their striking similarities in color and composition defies the reality of their long-distance collaboration. While clearly kindred spirits, the two women have met in person only once. Their friendship is maintained solely online, sustained by a shared love for moments of serenity, solitude, and peacefulness. The annotated photographs in A Year of Mornings radiate an aura of sweetness and lightthe promise of a new day.