Private Collection

The Sad Villa series deals with the role of memory in imagination. The place was real: the grounds of an abandoned Tuscan villa, uphill from the house where my family lived in 1972. My siblings and I trespassed regularly. Undeterred by locks we climbed over walls, struck poses in empty niches, and fished in decaying pools. Forty years later, our four adult memories don’t agree in every detail. But those memories – and a blurry black and white photo – make a new reality with its own truths.