Picture Story


What shall cast the shadow on the mountain? In this unbroken terrain, I found that I was lost in the world of subtle darkness, I had abandoned my shadow to the mine, I freed it to bleed into the dark heart of the desert, the quickening of the lands breath as clouds covered the mesa, the halo of dark that surrounds the cactus flower, the taint of my shadow on untamed land, I held in my hand a shard of pottery, in another millennium a woman pressed clay into a basket of stray, and placed the clay lined basket into fire, and from the purification of flame a vessel was formed.


These shards spoke to me of a simple life, in my hand they felt warm to my touch, as if I had an affinity to the potter that a millenia ago crafted them from straw and clay. A people of hunters and gatherers, moving from location following the streams, the promise of water, these vessels were broke on purpose, each pot smashed as to not allow bad spirits to follow them from place to place. I arranged them on a tableau of stone, and I photographed their beauty, I tempered my urge for possession, and following the custom of their creator I scattered them to the earth. No evil spirits followed me from that sacred place.