203 Park Avenue

… I arrived at "The House" - 203 Park Avenue, Arlington Heights, Massachusetts. It was my address for three of the next seven years. At that time I wasn't aware of the history of the other "workers" at Minor's various houses. The list included Walter Chappell, Michael Hoffman, John Upton, Paul Caponigro, Peter Bunnell, Douglas Prudden, David Plowden, and Bill Giles. Nor was I aware of the legion who had studied and worked with Minor, among them: Nathan Lyons, Jerry Uelsmann, A. A. Dutton, Carl Chiarenza, Ken Josephson.

Photo: Abe Frajndlich,
203 Park Ave, May 1975

The house was comfortless. It was designed that way. Tall, narrow, and white, it was set back from the street and hidden behind evergreens. Each room had a specific function. There was a viewing room off the front hall. It had a wall rack for photographs, suitable lighting, and almost nothing else but a couple of straight-backed chairs and a plant or two. In the room beyond it Minor sometimes received visitors. That room was more inviting. Some of his well-known photographs hung on the walls; there was a fireplace, more plants, and several cushioned chairs. The kitchen was at the back of the house. On the floor above, there was a study, a guest room, Minor's bedroom, a print room, and a bath. On the third floor, there were student quarters and the meditation room, and far below in the basement, the darkroom. Nowhere in the house was one invited to relax, to laugh, to gossip, or to waste time frivolously.

It was, however, an amazing place to live. In the library were all the copies of Aperture; monographs from a multitude of admirers and colleagues; many important photographic texts on the Zone System, photo-chemistry, and photo-history; as well as esoteric and mystical texts. There were also photographs from former and present students propped up on his desk and lying in stacks on the bookshelf. The phone rang constantly. Peter Bunnell was calling, or Ansel Adams, or Barbara Morgan. One never knew who was ringing the doorbell: a student with a portfolio, a curator from a prestigious museum, a critic or historian. We students knew we were at a generative nexus, and that was exciting. 

... There was a daily ritual in the house. At 6:30 in the morning the sound of Zen bells awakened us for meditation. 

... A painful awareness of Minor's death came six months after the fact, when I was working with Joe DeMaio in dismantling the darkroom. It was a maze of pipes and equipment, interlocking through three rooms. Each piece of copper tubing severed from the matrix and carried out bcame a graphic emblem of the house no longer pumping the vitality that it had for years. Those long lengths of copper resembled the tall gaunt figure he had become. When we shut off the water, it hit me that Minor was now really dead.

from Frajndlich, Abe - Lives I’ve Never Lived : A Portrait of Minor White (1983
[WorldCat]

[book review: John Upton in Aperture, Summer 1984]