vinyl siding¹
vinyl windows
sold online to the masses
leaving facades – these faces expressionless and muted
details covered or dismembered
facades now homogenized in a sad tired grey
hiding history that made a house a home

insulbrick™ ²
sold by traveling salesmen to homeowners by the foot
masquerading wooden houses pretending to be what they are not
slapped up over clapboards and splitting in the heat
reveal a glimpse of ancient color

wooden clapboards³
wooden windows
in faded hues of paint
flaking and cracking
yet still alive and breathing
nearly forgotten history that made the house a home

not one house
not one home
street by street
block by block
history covered up and suffocated
wrapped in a monochrome of vinyl
hiding history that made this place a home

written and read by david abruzzi at the 2025 gallery opening of “strata” – an exhibition of artists responding to the theme strata as broadly as befitted their practice and in relation to the town of hancock, maryland.

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¹vinyl siding.  a plastic exterior cladding made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC).  introduced in the 1950’s.
² insulbrick™.   an exterior siding product that mimics brick.  made from an inflammable mixture of asphalt, asbestos, and pebbles.  neither insulating nor brick.  popular from the 1930’s into the 1950’s.
³clapboards.  long, thin, flat pieces of wood with edges horizontally overlapping in series.  used to cover the exterior of buildings.