Preface

Beds for heirloom roses and a flock of wild guinea fowl. Final resting ground for vintage vehicles and turn-of-the-last-century outbuildings. Home to corn rows and a thousand cats.

The alleys of Sandpoint are where time stands still.

When Sandpoint's pioneer families were subdividing their homesteads into city blocks that were "added" to the city one after another in the early 1900s, alleys were required to provide "a right of way to lay pipes for gas, water or other public use, and to erect poles for telegraph, telephones or electric light purposes." Now, as the city is undergoing what many think of as "unprecedented development," to turn off a busy street in Farmin's Addition or the West End or Law's is to step not only through space but through time.

The Alleys of Sandpoint: Where Time Stands Still is photographer Marie-Dominique Verdier's original and dazzling celebration of this faded past and the colorful present that continue to thrive in these neglected pathways. With a keen eye and her digital Canon cameras, Do (doe) spent a year wandering the alleys after I mentioned that I often walked them to journey into the past.

The collection is alternatively luminous and whimsical, startling and evocative, but always a treat for the eye and a gift to the soul. Long after the alleys and their remnants of "old Sandpoint" finally fade away, Do's vivid images will remain as a fond and vibrant reminder of the years when time stood still.

Doris A. Fuller
2007