Happy Holidays

 

The Three Bears

The Three Bears ©2020 - A road trip to The Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Morris County NJ provided the background image and inspiration for this piece. The bears and fish were photographed at The Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange NJ, the butterfly in Pottersville NJ and the “bear’s cottage” is the caretaker’s house from a cemetery near Long Valley NJ. My “Goldilocks” is a composite of two vintage photos from my collection and the crow is one of many from my travels. As I’m sure you have surmised by now, this montage is loosely based on the fairy tale “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”.  It’s original title, “The Story of the Three Bears”, was first recorded in narrative form and published by British writer and poet Robert Southey in 1837. Prior to that, the story was only in circulation by word of mouth. As it goes, three bears live together in a house in the woods. Each bear has his own porridge bowl, chair and bed. One day at breakfast, the porridge is too hot to eat and they take a walk while it cools off. While they are out, a vagrant old woman called Silver Hair enters the house, eats the smallest bear’s porridge, sits in his chair and breaks it, then falls asleep in his bed. When the bears return and discover her and the damage she has done, she wakes, jumps out the window and is never seen again. The earliest written version was a poem by Eleanor Mure in 1831. It was handcrafted into a book complete with watercolor illustrations as a gift for her nephew, Horace Broke. In her version, the infuriated bears, after finding the woman, throw her into a fire and then into water before finally impaling her on top of St. Paul’s Cathedral and leaving her there. In 1849, Joseph Cundall published the story in his Treasury of Pleasure Books for Young Children and changed the antagonist from an old woman to a young girl to make it more appealing to children. In versions after that, she has remained a young girl although her name has gone from Silver Hair to Little Silver Hair, Golden Hair, Goldenlocks and finally, Goldilocks. Her fate in the end varies in the different versions from running into the forrest, being almost eaten by the bears, to becoming good friends with the bears. I think all would be more appealing   than being impaled as in Muer’s version!  In mine, the bears discuss the fate of their intruder as Goldilocks, entangled by the swamp, awaits their decision. A local crow takes pity on her and tries to give advice while a resident fish seems too enthralled by a butterfly to be bothered with any of this. And always, as the viewer, you are entitled to your own interpretation.

Crossing Over

  

Crossing Over ©2020 - I captured the background image of this piece in the small community of Oldwick, NJ. The little triangular island in the middle of the stream seemed to be an appealing start for a composition. Normally, I would avoid including the limb in the foreground jutting across the entire top of the frame, but in this case, I thought the depth it provided had creative possibilities. A year later, one of those possibilities began to formulate in my mind. I placed a historic stone building I photographed in Lebanon, NJ called Taylor’s Mill on the island. Built in 1760, it’s dark, foreboding entrance emulates a portal to an unknown world. The alligator slipping into the water in front of it is from the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, NJ. These creatures are ancient and have evolved very little from their beginning over 50 million years ago, thus representing a deep connection with Mother Nature and her cycles that we are all subject to. The boat is from a vintage image in my collection that originally contained 2 women, one with a pair of oars, having an afternoon outing on a lake. I removed them from the boat, fashioned a pole from the oars, and added a different woman and man also from my vintage photo collection. The narrative I envisioned is loosely based on the Greek Mythology story of Charon the Ferryman whose duty it was to transport the souls of the dead over the Rivers Styx and Acheron to reach the underworld. His payment was a single coin placed in the mouth of the deceased prior to burial. In my piece, the woman holds a silver coin in her hand to compensate the ferryman for a calm and peaceful journey across the stream. Looking on from above is a trio of crows, prophets of and witnesses to the crossing over below. Fog in the background, color, filters and texture were added to complete the piece.

A Matter of Trust

    

A Matter of Trust ©2020 - A road trip in November of 2019 on route 202 just over the border from New Jersey into Pennsylvania yielded a property with an extraordinary bare tree. With it’s huge limbs fanning out and reaching like tentacles for the sky, it became (along with the weather-beaten old barn behind it) the background for this piece. My little falconer (defined as a person who keeps or trains birds of prey) is a carte de visite (or visiting card) from my vintage photo collection and dates from the 1860’s. Most people associate daguerreotypes with that era, but these small cards were albumen silver prints, the first commercial method producing a photographic print on paper from a negative. They became extremely popular and were  commonly traded and collected among friends and visitors during the Civil War years. After some restoration, minor adjustments and coloring, she fit nicely into the composition. Her menagerie consists of a magnificent Andean Condor that I photographed at The Turtleback Zoo in West Orange, NJ and a large venue of black vultures. Oddly, when I photographed them, they were gathered on the roof of a large modern home in a well manicured neighborhood. I thought they looked much more at home on the roof of the old barn and the bare tree limb. The Andean Condor, coming in for a soft landing, is an imposing creature with the longest wingspan of any raptor (10 to 11 ft). As it’s name suggests, they inhabit the Andes Mountain range along the Pacific coast of western South America. These large scavengers, like other vultures, are principally carrion eaters (meaning they eat animals that are already dead). As nature’s clean-up crew, they help keep us safe from contaminates and the environment clean. After bringing all these elements of my composition together, color, texture and select filters were added for the final piece. As the young falconer would probably tell you, a flutter of wings can quicken the heart or soothe the soul; it’s all “A Matter of Trust”.