Remnants

REMnant: A surviving trace

I have been racking my brain for a name for the mixed media series I am working on. I was waiting for, and hoping that, I would have a few finished pieces from my Eighteen X Experiment that would give me some direction. And lo and behold I actually have two finished pieces so far. Yes, I am a bit surprised that I finally feel like I finished something, and I am also slightly surprised at the direction they took.

I liked one of the initial ideas I had for the series name: Mornings - because truly I am most creative and open to creativity in the morning. Mornings are part of it, but that seemed too vast. It needed to be narrowed a bit, but not too much.

The dog and I have been driving around for the last two days, displaced from our safe haven of the house while new carpet was being installed. Only Atticus would be mostly content to ride in the car for two days in a row. He did miss his couch an awful lot, and kept visiting it in the garage.

With LOTS of time to kill, we drove to and by many of my favorite places from the past. Places I have explored, and photographed many times. All the places I love are old, and it made me so happy to see that they are still there. Old factories with rusty metal, missing glass, and overgrown weeds. Historic and uniquely one-of-a-kind summer cottages. 1960’s ice cream stands for sale, still for sale, but not torn down. Old walls, and metal fences and gates. Old headstones with Victorian decoration. A castle built as a summer home, now a resort gathering place.

Then this morning on our walk, I photographed a stucco wall in the historic cottage area that I have been doing a study of for the last few weeks, and a good title came to me - Remnants. These things and places I love are still remaining, but generally left behind by the people that created them in the first place.