Dear Readers,
The Blessed and Their Buildings are fading into the sunset. After writing 26 essays since last January, it’s time to move on. To what exactly, I’m not sure, although I have some ideas for future blogs. I’m guarding your e mail addresses so I can inform you of whatever new creation might take shape, but to close out the year, I wanted to send you a message of thanks.
I had no expectations when I began this project. I had only the hope that giving myself deadlines would force me to write and draw more regularly, a hope which was fulfilled, and enhanced with a pleasure that far exceeded that simple hope. It’s been a matter of “prospect and refuge,” a mixture of experience that the British geographer Jay Appleton believed essential to our mental health. There was prospect in exploring the unknown, the excitement of not knowing what exactly I would have to say about Saint X or Saint Y, in what way I would find them significant. Sometimes the revelation came right away, and sometimes not until the last minute; scary! To balance that uncertainty, there was refuge in my confidence that I had already found ways to describe some of the buildings in my lectures over the years, and that I had the resources I needed to teach me more.
And then there was you. As the months rolled by, I realized how important it was to me that I had an audience to whom I was responsible. You gradually grew in number, and I know some of you from my first days in architecture school and others of you I know not at all! I sincerely hope that you have enjoyed this journey, and hope that if you are inclined, you will provide me with feedback via my e mail at: medieviste@gmail.com. I do plan to send query letters to editors in the hopes of turning some form of this collection into a book, so if you have any ideas, preferences, critiques that would help me, they are welcome.
In closing, I wish my French readers une très belle fin d’année et réveillon, and my American readers A Very Happy New Year, and for the English, with whose customs I am not so accustomed to, a delicious glass or two or more of bubbly to celebrate this last day of the year.
Thank you for your support and encouragement. You have given me a great gift!
Catherine
31 December 2021: Thank you and good night!
I have enjoyed reading your newsletters. I hope that they will remain on Substack so that I can refer to them again. I am planning to end my own Substack newsletter at the end of June and wondered if that would be OK. Perhaps you are first in what will become a special category on Substack.