DAVID GIBSON WRITING

To have emerged from a past that no longer exists is the legacy, and perhaps the tragedy, of those who live long enough to alter and reconstitute their identity. For Pat Benincasa, the obsolescence of the Industrial Era in American history held not only dreams in its wake, but lives. Her work encompasses the structures, the towns and cities, the greater American landscape around them, and the specific if frequently forgotten accomplishments of figures from this world. She has taken cultural possession of the past. Within its fabric hides a rich palimpsest where memory and the imagination meet. She excavates and celebrates the details that make up this history. Benincasa’s oeuvre encompasses three distinct bodies of work. One is devoted to the industrial structures; the second to the streets and avenues of Rust Belt cities, that were known for specific industrial products, and became communities; and for her newest project, “Women At The Wheel,” a series of history markers commemorating