Closing a Summer Cottage Remake - Elizabeth Viggiano. September 2017

Closing a Summer Cottage - Norman Rockwell. September 1957

Experience - Rockwell Remake

Role - Producer

Collaborator- Elizabeth Viggiano - Photographer and Art Director

Talent- My family ;)

Location - Quogue, New York

Year - 2017

In 1957 Norman Rockwell was commissioned by Kodak to make a series of Americana Kodak Colorama photographs. Rockwell had a few hired actors and actresses for the shoot but most of the models were locals that he asked right off the street like my great grandmother, ‘Gammie’, featured as the grandmother waiting in the car.

Elizabeth Viggiano and I agreed that this photo had to be recreated with my family members and other locals from the neighborhood in true Rockwell fashion. In the remake of Closing A Summer Cottage my grandmother Joan Larson sits where Gammie sat. My grandfather Bob Larson leans into the wagon trunk puzzled, where the Marlboro man originally did. Other characters consist of cousins, my brother, sister-in-law, the owners of the home, that weekend’s renters, local kids, one of the original cast members (who was the boy holding the tube, poses as the man in the red shirt), neighborhood kids, and myself.

Norman Rockwell is known for celebrating Americana through his nostalgic images that are known and loved throughout the country. Our remake captures the relationships with nostalgia around this image, combining shared memories to be repackaged and lived again.