A lot of people talk about "Urban Exploration" as wandering around old abandoned factories and buildings and yeah, that IS kind of cool (although risky if you get caught for breaking and entering) to me it just means, discovering cool stuff close to home, in my home town, having random adventures without really going far.
Any kind of strenuous hiking, exercise, and/or long distance driving were out of the question this past weekend as I was far from 100% back to full health, and didn't have much energy for it. So we stayed pretty close to home. So we were driving down some random street, just cruising. It was one of those super wooded streets in this old part of town. And then we roll up on this ancient Victorian house, kind of like one of those old haunted looking houses, surrounded by dense leafy trees already turning yellow. A sign out front said "Artist Open Studios" (or something to that effect) and on the front door, a sign basically saying, come on in. Well, this was intriguing, so on a whim, we parked out front and decided to go check this out. We went up to the front door and knocked. This woman- the artist's daughter as it turned out, answered it. "Uh, so like, does the artist live here?" I ask. "Come on in! Yeah, here he is (pointing to this old guy in an easy chair) and feel free to wander around and explore!" We looked at each other, nodded, - and stepped inside.
The place was awesome. The entire house was filled, top to bottom, with brightly colored paintings- abstract modernist style, each one colorful and bold. We struck up a conversation with the artist. His name was Tarmo Watia, and he had been doing this for literally, over sixty five years. Born in Michigan, the son of immigrants from Finland (obviously) he had taught art all over the country, and had showings all over the world- and here he was, living right here in our little home town, and just opened up his house to us. How awesome was this? We ended up buying a piece from this guy, a small original for like $65. But there was so much art the choices were endless. Stacks of unframed watercolors sat on the tables and benches. In a side room off the living room, entire binders- dozens of them- were full of paintings, along with more stacks. "Yeah, feel free to go upstairs," the daughter said. Seriously? Well, the stairwell was one of those narrow, dark winding staircases where you would almost expect some ghostly figure to descend, but instead it was the opposite- what we found at the top were nothing but whole rooms full of brightly colored paintings. Huge canvases sat in rows in one tiny bedroom, while another room had more canvases and supplies. At the back of the upstairs, was a bright, sunny room, with windows all around, that was full of easels and art supplies and paintings in various stages of completion- this must be where he worked, I thought.
Just this house alone was awesome enough. But filled to the brim with Tarmo Watia paintings- it was like an artistic wonderland. There must have been at least 20,000 pieces of art here. And that's no exaggeration, remember he had been painting for over sixty five years. The only thing missing, we noted, was a typical bedroom. "Oh, I just sleep on the couch; I have little need for rest; I'm just always creating." He said. Tarmo was just the coolest old dude in the world, and I didn't mind saying so. If you ever get a chance, check out his stuff online; it's really vivid and colorful. So anyway, you never know what kind of random cool stuff you'll run up against when out on a local urban exploration. Even though I didn't really "Do much" it was still pretty cool overall. Anyway just thought I'd share that. That's about it; see ya.