La Casa Grande Colectiva

The Memory Drawer

There is a drawer in the kitchen at La Casa that has been collecting photographs since the 1970s. Nobody curated it. People moved out, left prints behind, and the drawer absorbed them.

We’ve scanned what we have but we can’t identify most of these people, and we’re guessing at most of the dates.

If you recognise anyone, anything, or any year — please leave a comment. Click any photo to open its own page, where it has its own comment thread. Corrections, names, stories, arguments about what year the green witch appeared: all welcome.

Start here

Sepia group photograph in the kitchen with two dogs and a cat.
The oldest photograph in the drawer. We think 1970s. Can anyone date it?
Posed group portrait of seven people.
A house portrait. Seven of us. What year, and who?
Posed group portrait of five people.
Another house portrait, same session or a nearby year.
Wall with cut-paper letters reading LA CASA SOCKS AILSA beside a chore grid.
“LA CASA SOCKS AILSA.” Somebody please explain this one.
Two people at a table with a HOUSEWORK CHART on the shelves behind.
Note the housework chart on the shelf behind. Some things don’t change.
A woman holding a nameplate reading PUMPERNICKEL.
PUMPERNICKEL. The story here is presumably excellent.
Hand-lettered bottle label for La Casa Raspberry Liqueur.
La Casa Raspberry Liqueur, featuring Bandito the Dapper. We would like the recipe.

The house and the people

Four people on the snowy front steps.
On the front steps, in the snow.
The full house seen from the yard in winter.
The house from the yard, before the vinyl siding went on.
A dozen people in Halloween costume by the fireplace.
Halloween in the living room. Who’s who — and what year?
A person in green witch make-up and a black pointed hat.
The green witch. A recurring character, or a one-off?
Two people in Halloween costume on the porch.
Halloween on the porch.
Two people, one in a pointed hat, one in a POLICE shirt.
Costume, or just a Tuesday?
Three people in a tuxedo and fez, black dress, and cowboy hat.
Dressed for something. We don’t know what.
A person reclining against bookshelves below a UNITE AT THE BALLOT BOX poster.
The library corner — and a poster worth reading twice.
A man on the wall phone stirring a stockpot.
Cooking and taking a call. The kitchen phone had a very long cord.
Two people behind two enormous stockpots.
Cooking at scale.
Three people at the table with two pies.
Pie.
Six people around the dining table.
Around the table.
Three men at the dinner table by candlelight.
Dinner table, mid-argument or mid-punchline.
Three people leaning together at a crowded table.
A good night.
Two men outdoors, one pulling a face.
Porch portrait.
Two men laughing, one embracing the other.
Whatever the joke was, it landed.
Two people arm in arm in a doorway.
In the doorway.
A woman lounging on a pink couch.
On the pink couch.
A person grinning under the open basement stairs.
Caught under the basement stairs.
A person climbing high in a large tree.
Up the tree.
Orange-cast Polaroid of a bearded man holding a dog.
A man and his dog, in Polaroid orange.
Two Polaroids of a man riding a bicycle.
Two Polaroids of the same bike ride.
A woman in front of an Urbana fire engine.
Engine 21 pays a visit. Anyone remember why?
Four people gardening beside the house with a ladder against the wall.
Garden work along the wall. That’s the red outbuilding back there.
Two people embracing beside stacked lumber and debris.
Mid-project, mid-hug. What were we building?
Three older snapshots photographed stacked together.
Three snapshots, photographed together. Anyone recognise the middle one?
Three stacked snapshots including a kiddie pool and a golden retriever.
Summer, a kiddie pool, and a very patient dog.

Rooms, yard and lots

An upright piano with plants and books on top.
The piano. Still there, or long gone?
Corner shelves stacked with home-canned jars.
The canning shelves.
A wall of kitchen shelving full of jars and cookbooks.
The pantry wall, fully loaded.
Workshop with a radial-arm saw and hanging tools.
The workshop.
The back yard under snow at low sun.
The back yard under snow.
The house seen across an overgrown side lot.
The house from the side lot.
An open vacant lot with bare winter trees.
One of the lots, before anything was done with it.
An overgrown lot strewn with brush and debris.
Before the clearing.
A gravel alley with standing puddles.
The alley after rain.
A muddy alley beside the house with a figure at the far end.
Down the alley.

Got more photos?

Comment on any photo, or write to us at lacasacollectiva@gmail.com. And if you have photographs of your own from any era, we would love copies.