Blog
The telephone game of tour guiding
Reading Time: 4 minutesA photo I took of staff from Taliesin Preservation on a “class trip” to the Johnson Wax World Headquarters. The “telephone game of tour guiding” is what I came up with after hearing some whoppers from tour guides at Taliesin. btw: I’m writing only about staff I’ve come across, not who’s giving tours there now. […]
The Chronologies—my detailed history of Taliesin
Reading Time: 6 minutesThe drawing above shows the main floor of Taliesin where Wright lived, 1936-39. This is one of my favorite Taliesin drawings. Why? Because it actually shows the space pretty much as it existed at that time. In this case, I’m talking about Taliesin the building, not Taliesin the estate. I mean: the UNESCO site, […]
Hill Tower at Taliesin
Reading Time: 5 minutesAn unknown woman stands in the Hill Garden of Taliesin with the Hill Tower behind her. Either Marion Mahoney Griffen or husband Walter Burley Griffin took the photo, 1920-24. The Griffins met while working in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park studio. I can’t tell if the woman is Marion, who would have been in her […]
The Abandoned Stairway at Taliesin
Reading Time: 6 minutesI was working on my Taliesin Book1 and thought up another change at Taliesin I should write about. So today I’m going to write about what you see in the photo at the top of this post. The photo shows a stairway that used to take you from Taliesin’s Guest Wing (the first floor) up […]
Frank Lloyd Wright Violated the Mann Act
Reading Time: 5 minutesNo, not the first time he violated it. I wrote about that before when introducing you to the second Mrs. Wright. In this post I’ll write about the second (and last) time. As I wrote once before, information about the Mann Act is something you learn when working at Taliesin. In particular, the Mann Act […]
The Musical-Note Retaining Wall at Taliesin
Reading Time: 4 minutesWe hear he liked music, if you didn’t know that, just trust me but what is this thing about a Musical Note? I’m talking about a retaining wall outside of Taliesin and I’m going to write about it today. It’s called that because It looks like two musical quarter notes touching end-to-end.1 You can […]
Doing too many Taliesin tours
Reading Time: 5 minutesMy post today isn’t going to be about taking too many Taliesin tours, but about giving too many of them. That’s because, you see, we’re coming into late September and I realized that the Taliesin tour guides right now may start to feel like what I wrote years ago in my unpublished memoir, “What […]
Flower in the Crannied Wall at Taliesin
Reading Time: 5 minutesI posted today because I want to talk about the “Flower in the Crannied Wall” statue at Taliesin. She was originally designed for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Susan Lawrence Dana residence in Springfield, IL (1902-04). Sculptor Richard Bock make her in terra cotta for Wright and she was placed inside, near the front door of the […]
The wedding anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright and Olgivanna
Reading Time: 4 minutesFrank Lloyd Wright standing with daughters Svetlana and Iovanna, while his wife, Olgivanna, looks at the photographer. Wright’s sister, Maginel, sits behind them with the dog. Judging from Iovanna’s age, I think this was taken in the summer of 1930-32. The group is seated at Taliesin’s Tea Circle steps. I can’t find an early photo […]
Statements after the murders at Taliesin in 1914
Reading Time: 6 minutesAugust 15, this coming Thursday, marks 110 years since 7 people were inexplicably murdered at Frank Lloyd Wright’s home, Taliesin, by his servant, Julian Carlton. I’ve written about it a couple of times1 and had not planned on writing anything today. But I’ve gathered a lot of information over the years and, in the spirit […]
