This is Mel and Fred with their dog Atticus in their home and their neighborhood. I took these photographs over 2 months ago and I wanted to share them and tell my story of Mel Barnes. Mel and I moved to Madison together in 2006, we lived in a drafty old blue house that was frequently visited by mice, we lived off of leftover Persian food from Caspian Cafe (where we both worked - hands down best food in the world), we would get ice cream on the first snow fall every year and we often were found at MadCity Records in the dollar bins. We lived together in that house for 3 years, having 10 other roommates throughout those years but we stuck together through it all. I made a ‘no cat’ rule in our first year and she broke it, Señor Gomez came into our home, helped with the mice and taught me cats can be pretty great. We found our clothing at Dig n Save, we had crappy internet so we spent most of our evenings in our gross basement drinking coffee, doing homework and creating art or sitting on our front porch meeting people who to this day are still in our lives. I loved my years at the ‘01, I loved those years with Mel Barnes as my roommate. I love that Mel is now a lawyer for Planned Parenthood, has a real great dog, a loving partner and a beautiful home and I love that she asked me to come document their life.
