Books

Fiction

Mail Art  

Visual Arts

Performance

Art Photos

Italy

Slovenia

Prague

Amsterdam

Austria

Costa Rica

Austria 1999

Austria, as part of the trip - with a trek to Dormitz, near Innsbruck, to chase down the story of the Dormitzers, my mother's ancestry. We may have found it - although there are no Dormitzers in Dormitz, the gypsies came to this part of the Tyrol every Spring to sharpen cutlery, and in so doing brought an interesting tradition of the Carnival rite, which is celebrated as the taking over of Winter by Spring. And the Dormitzers that emigrated from Prague in late 1800's were German Jewish, not Austrian Catholic. And they brought the craft of knife-making, establishing the first factory in the US (in Connecticut) to make Solingen-grade cutlery. The factory was burned down by Dormitzers business partner for the insurance money right before WWI, an early tale of the bad timing of corporate greed.

Two
Two kids sledding near a snow-covered shrine, outside of Nassereith.
Patty at the World War Shrine at the pilgrimage church in Dormitz. The church, below, has been a pilgrim destination for over 200 years. You must walk a pilgrimage path from Nassereith to Dormitz, about a kilometer path cut through deep snow. Small shrines (below left) greet the traveler on the way up the hill to Dormitz. In Austria, the shrines flowers are always fresh.