Starry Night-A Tree's Dream is a black and white photograph
of knot holes in driftwood. Technically it's not driftwood, as it's more than
3000 feet up Mt. Diablo. Maybe weathered wood would be a better term. It's by
Barry Massoni, one of the near abstract photos in Natural Abstraction's flora
and fauna gallery. |
June 27th, 2002, on Mt. Diablo in Prospector's Gap |
As an artist, I usually don't comment on my own photographs,
preferring to let them speak for themselves, but in this case I'll make
an exception. Not only did I think this subject was striking, and meant more
than a pair of knot holes in rotting wood, but I found myself thinking of all
the things the tree 'saw' (as you might have guessed I found the paired dark empty
holes in such white wood eerily similar to a skull). This tree was close to
Prospector's Gap, and probably saw the first miners come to the mountain looking
for gold in the 1850's, then saw the copper and quicksilver miner's come, set
up their mines, and probably saw them leave too, before falling in some raging
storm, going the way of all living things. I guess it's my poet's soul that
believes the tree is sleeping, dreaming of all the dark starry nights it saw before
the cities grew up around Mt. Diablo, nights impressed in its grain, looking
very much like Van Gogh's Starry Night, even as we're inspired by a magnificence
which shines through, even in decay. |
