14 Bradford Street

West End Studios | Marc Kundmann Studio | K. D. Mernin Studio

14 Bradford Street, West End Studios. [2016, Dunlap]

Advertisement in the Advocate of 10 September 1931, Page 4. [Provincetown Public Library / Community History Archive]

Advertisement in the Advocate of 17 June 1948, Page 6. [Provincetown Public Library / Community History Archive]

Advertisement in the Advocate of 5 May 1966. [Provincetown Public Library / Community History Archive]

[2016, Dunlap]

Home page of Marc Kundmann’s website as of 2022. [marckundmann.com]

[2016, Dunlap]

Home page of K. D. Mernin’s website as of 2022. [kdmernin.com]

In the pair of houses once under common ownership at 12 Bradford Street and 14 Bradford Street, each is notable: one for for a front porch that looks like a former storefront — because it is — and the other for its monumental Doric columns.

The parcels were long owned by Joseph Silva Perry (1869-1928) and his descendants, through to his granddaughter Ann V. Welles. She sold No. 12 in 2019 but continued to own No. 14 at this writing.

Perry ran a grocery store here and also dealt in automotive products, to judge from a 1923 ad that listed him as an agent for Coffield Tire Protectors, a lining that was supposed to prolong the life of inner tubes. After Perry’s death, the store was taken over by Jackson Richard Cabral (1906-1950), and was known as Jackson Cabral’s.

When the Perrys’ son Joseph Kermit Perry returned from military service in the late 1940s, he took over the business at No. 14 and renamed it Kermit’s Market: “Last Store Going to New Beach — First Store Coming Back!” (New Beach was the old name for Herring Cove.)

By 1966, it was Joe’s Paint Shop.

Today, the commercial space houses the workshops of Marc Kundmann and K. D. Mernin. Kundman works in encaustic and acrylic media, focusing his work on Provincetown, Cape Cod generally, and the Yucatan. He says of himself on his website: “I began to paint my surroundings, the wild beaches of Truro in particular, en plein air. I studied and workshopped with fine artists connected to the long tradition of painting and art-making on the Cape including Robert Henry, a student of Hans Hofmann’s, and Fine Arts Work Center fellows Jim Peters, Bert Yarborough, and Richard Baker. Through them I learned to explore materials, free myself from the constraints of representing the real world and work in a more expressive way, responding to color and composition and creating work from both intellect and emotion. I am also particularly influenced by … David Park, Wayne Thiebaud, and Richard Diebenkorn. … I try to focus on the joy of creating. My hope is that the resulting layers create not only intriguing and beautiful surfaces, but also give emotional life to the subjects, whether figures, structures, or boats, and hint at the mystery inside.”

Mernin said of herself on her website: “My painting is generally done plein air to create color studies of the natural world around me. I work to capture to fleeting nature and quality of light in the tradition of the Cape School of Art. Secondarily, I make work that many would say is based in social or political commentary. For me the two seemingly disparate art practices are inextricably intertwined. Each is necessary to keep the other fresh and both are strongly influenced by the languages of color, line, text, and image. Both are influenced by the world around us to provide material and context. I prefer to work quickly and boldly — to best reflect my passion for the exploration of the artist’s hand or gesture, and how it can define a work of art. I adore words, vintage images, and pattern. I use these to bring ideas about femininity, sex, family, and politics to my collage-based and monoprint work. I love the power of light to define mood and message.”

Ann V. Welles wrote on 13 September 2012: How delightful to see my home on this blog.

My grandfather, Joseph Silva (sometimes Silvia) Perry, owned this house and remodeled it for his second wife, Phoebe (Philomena) Silva Perry, in the 1920s. Prior to that, it was a typical L-shaped, steep-roofed Provincetown home with the front door to the side. My grandfather centered the front door, added the columns, added the dormers and an addition for a bath and attached kitchen (v. the outdoor “summer” kitchen), and made significant interior changes, more or less informed by the Arts and Crafts style then popular. Joseph Perry ran a grocery store in No. 14 Bradford and was an engineer of the Provincetown Fire Department until his death in 1928.

There was a gap in the running of the store until my uncle, Joseph Kermit Perry, returned to town from a stint in, I believe, the Navy. He brought with him his wife Gladys, and they occupied the apartment above the store. Eventually they moved to Florida.

[My grandmother] died in 1963 after living here for six decades. My father, Reginald Perry, was born in the upstairs back bedroom in 1920, graduated high school at age 16, and went over the bridge to college where he met my mother, Helen. He never again lived full time in Provincetown after he left for college. He died in 1979, and my mother continued to live in Wellesley until she joined me in Framingham. One way or another, sometimes too neglectfully, we kept No. 12 and No. 14 as a summer home and as rental property all the way to the present.

I have just recently retired and moved [to Provincetown] full time and am looking forward to, among other things, researching more of my family history. The above is reasonably accurate, I think, at least for the moment.

¶ Last updated on 22 November 2022.