Central Library
Austin Music Project Blues
RECEIVED Tue., Dec. 20, 2022
Dear Editor,
As an unflagging supporter of Austin music, The Chronicle is always something I grab upon my entry into the city – whether on a Thursday or otherwise. As a music fan, I know I will enjoy the music features and ample music listings from issue to issue.
Perhaps your music writers and your overall readership would like to know that the photographs from the Austin Music Project – once 52 strong – are now virtually non-existent on the walls of the Austin Wyndham Garden Hotel, which was once the repository of them in a coalition between the Project and that specific hotel. Apparently, only seven survived the purge; the other 45 are in "storage" somewhere in the bowels of the vast hotel, according to a manager who grudgingly gave me a bit of info and suggested that neither my love for music nor my Diamond Elite status with Wyndham was enough to grant me a look at them. This is unfortunate, since the hotel and the Music Project collaborated on a multi-page brochure a few years back, which tied hotel advertising specifically with those photos.
I wonder if world-class photographers like London's Phil Weedon, New Zealand's Danny Garrett and Austin's Don Emmons are aware that their work lies fallow and inaccessible in this building; surely former Austin resident Lucinda Williams, and current Austin residents Gurf Morlix and Charlie Sexton would be surprised at this neglect – along with the other 42 artists. And the beautiful extended captions by the likes of John T. Davis and the late Margaret Moser are, in effect, lost too. I'm so glad I got to see a complete set of photos and captions on a previous visit.
A Google search reveals no contact info under the name "Austin Music Project," and the former hotel manager for whom this was a labor of love is unidentifiable and in any case erased from the ranks in this age of corporate ownership.
I love visiting Austin, but this diminishment on my recent trip bodes ill for your city and its thriving arts scene.
As an unflagging supporter of Austin music, The Chronicle is always something I grab upon my entry into the city – whether on a Thursday or otherwise. As a music fan, I know I will enjoy the music features and ample music listings from issue to issue.
Perhaps your music writers and your overall readership would like to know that the photographs from the Austin Music Project – once 52 strong – are now virtually non-existent on the walls of the Austin Wyndham Garden Hotel, which was once the repository of them in a coalition between the Project and that specific hotel. Apparently, only seven survived the purge; the other 45 are in "storage" somewhere in the bowels of the vast hotel, according to a manager who grudgingly gave me a bit of info and suggested that neither my love for music nor my Diamond Elite status with Wyndham was enough to grant me a look at them. This is unfortunate, since the hotel and the Music Project collaborated on a multi-page brochure a few years back, which tied hotel advertising specifically with those photos.
I wonder if world-class photographers like London's Phil Weedon, New Zealand's Danny Garrett and Austin's Don Emmons are aware that their work lies fallow and inaccessible in this building; surely former Austin resident Lucinda Williams, and current Austin residents Gurf Morlix and Charlie Sexton would be surprised at this neglect – along with the other 42 artists. And the beautiful extended captions by the likes of John T. Davis and the late Margaret Moser are, in effect, lost too. I'm so glad I got to see a complete set of photos and captions on a previous visit.
A Google search reveals no contact info under the name "Austin Music Project," and the former hotel manager for whom this was a labor of love is unidentifiable and in any case erased from the ranks in this age of corporate ownership.
I love visiting Austin, but this diminishment on my recent trip bodes ill for your city and its thriving arts scene.
Roger Stanley
