Natick Architecture

Natick, Massachusetts was mostly built in the late 19th and early 20th century. The buildings of Main Street date from the 1880s to the turn of the century. The building where my mother's art studio is, was a dance hall in the previous century as well as an office building later on. It's still a dance hall, not for adult pleasures but for little girls who take dance classes there. It doesn't have an elevator. To get to the upper floor you have to march up about 20 steep steps made out of hard granite. It would be prohibitively expensive to install an elevator, and you cannot do too many changes to the building because it was declared a "historic" edifice.

Once you get to the top of the steps and into the studio, you see other ornate 19th century buildings across the street through the tall studio windows. One of the buildings was built by the Freemasons and an upper room is still used for ceremonies. This is a drawing of some of the ornaments on this block. They don't build'em like they used to. Pitt pen on sketchbook page, about 5" x 4".

I returned home after a hellish 2-day journey on roads plagued by deterioration, traffic, and construction. The visit home was very difficult. The best part was wine tasting with my mother. There were many other parts which are not the subject of this By-product. But I am home now and must immediately return to my projects, such as making enough art to show and sell at Darkovercon (coming up for the 33rd time next month) and learning to digitally draw and paint beautiful girls.