Found in Translation

The black and white photo you see here was taken by an amazing photographer named Ulrika Kestere. I follow her blog pretty religiously, www.ulicam.blogspot.com. She lives in Scandanavia, but took this photo while in Italy last spring. I fell in love with the photo, and wanted to use it as a reference for a collage. Very sweetly, Uli gave me permission to do so. I have finally gotten to work on my translation of it, and I have some thoughts that I needed to muddle through as the process deepens.

Firstly, I love the tension in the photo between the horse and the figure. I love the spirit in the animal, I love the body language. The relationship between the two is what intrigued me about the photo to begin with. Somehow, I am having trouble deciding to put the figure in my collage. (Perhaps cause it's a Fellow? My friend James the Boot likes to comment that I always have "ladies" in my artwork. I would reply, "How come you only play songs on the guitar by Men?" Anyway. There's a male figure in one piece of mine, James therefore needs to broaden his setlist at least by one! Ahem...)

Back to the subject at hand. I am pulled to the idea of creating a mirror image of the same horse, or transforming the figure of the trainer into a horse with a similar stance, keeping them connected with the line. This would continue the theme of both "After the Dust Settles, The Fire Burns" and also "But Your Story Weighs So Much More Than My Story." One depicted two horses rearing, and the other depicted elephants on a circus teeter totter, both focused on the idea of interaction between two energies/animals/opinions/forces/what-have-you.

The other aspect of this process that I am so interested in, is the fact that I have unwittingly turned Uli's depiction of the lovely Italian landscape into something more like Central Oregon. The palette is undeniably the West. The hills look rocky and slightly wild. An early bit of feedback, via text message critique, mentioned Vast. In a way, it seems honest to translate Uli's landscape into a landscape that I am very much attached too, one that resonates so much with me, especially after the Epic Road Trip of the Fall- this is what Oregon looked like as I headed East.

Thoughts? Feedback?

Also- This is a big one. Thirtytwo by forty inches. How does that translate into metric, Scandinavian friends?