Emptied Prairie

 "I Dare You to Like This as Much as I Do."

Andrew Wyeth:  Christina's World  1948
Museum of Modern Art, New York City

Andrew Wyeth:  Master Bedroom  1965

 If, like me, you grew up on a prairie farm in an area that was previously populated by families every quarter section, you are familiar with Emptied Prairie -- skeletons of family farms surrounded by ghosts of its former inhabitants.   Family farms abandoned complete with furniture, old clothes, books and more.  This was my childhood playground. Note the Andrew Wyeth like picture in the page above. In place of the young girl in the field note the skeleton. Note the similarity of the cat in the abandoned bedroom in the top image to Wyeth's "Master Bedroom".  These images are gel transfers from a National Geographic photo.  When National Geographic did an article entitled Emptied Prairie in 2008, I used the images and created this piece.  I started with a background coloured as a winter landscape and gel transferred, tape transferred, and collaged the images on to the background.  The reason I like it so much is because this not only reminds me of these haunts from my childhood visually but also seems to capture the mood that these memories elicit.