Seth Clark’s drawings/paintings of abandoned houses really blow my mind. They’re so spidery and real, with caverns and suspicion in all the right places. When we were kids, my sister Ellie and I used to draw a lot. I drew people (mostly in ballet costumes), but Ellie drew houses. Big Victorian numbers with complicated gables and shutters. Clark’s work is what I imagine Ellie would have been drawn to if she’d chosen art instead of math.

Really, I guess, my sister and I were interested in the same things. Not capturing the people themselves (for what do children know of strangers?), but what surrounded them—tulle and shingles, bricks and satin.