The Florence Griswold House is a location deeply personal to me. I moved to Lyme from Hadlyme with my family when I was 12, making this my hometown museum. My connection runs deep — I was married on these grounds and have had the honor of exhibiting my work at the museum.

This historic site feels like another birthplace of my creative journey. My first time photographing on these grounds marked the beginning of my work with historic homes. What started as simply exploring beautiful historic houses evolved when the museum director encouraged me to continue. This spark ignited something profound, and seven years later, I remain deeply in love with this project and process.

I have returned to the museum several times to refine the images and stories created on the property. In this image, I recreated one of the legendary dinners at the Florence Griswold House, where artists once gathered to create the Old Lyme Art Colony. The subjects are all friends of mine and local contemporary artists, continuing the creative legacy of this historic space. One figure holds Florence Griswold's actual opera glasses (with her name inscribed) — instruments that once allowed her to focus on distant performances, now inviting us to look more closely at the space she created for artistic community. Beastie, appearing among the artists, represents the untamed creative force that transcends time — the raw inspiration that connected artists of the past to the natural world and continues to infuse the artistic process today.