Uchiwa fan

I made a uchiwa fan for B by pasting a printout of a photo encaustic (wood nymph 2) on a bamboo fan frame, then added cord, a stick and pine cone scales. A short kodama poem alludes to her being trapped inside a tree.

Musing

Red muse

Bursting out

Nymph posing

While visiting Mary in Moonbeam last summer, I shot a series of poses of her enacting the role of the kodama (wood nymph) for a storyline I was exploring, The book would merge images with Japanese tanka poems. The idea was to show the wood nymph at night inside a tree, escaping her arboreal confines, and experiencing her new surroundings. In the boreal setting of this scene, fiery trees stand motionless against a cloudy sky. Mary easily slipped into this role—her facial expressions, body poses and hand gestures can instantly evoke a multiplicity of emotions.

Digital composites or collages of this kind allow the capturing of real elements that can be distorted in camera or through image processing software. Real elements are extracted, juxtaposed, layered and processed to create completely new realities.

Wood nymph kodama

After a tortuous struggle, her head pierces through the skin of the white bark, and her eyes gleam as she witnesses for the first time ever the hypnotic lights in the borealis sky.