Pine Tree Ballads
Scout in the Bucket, from the series Pine Tree Ballads
Series: Pine Tree Ballads
I have profound memories of my family interacting at our summer cottage on Gray's Point on an island off the coast of Maine. The small farmhouse and land have been passed down from my great grandparents and have become an inherited sanctuary for four generations. Surrounded by the pines and the sea, time evaporates causing family, place, and memory to become intertwined. During our annual stays, we are often reacquainted with the true nature of our relationships which at times can be both magical and unsettling.
Gray's Point is the final resting place of my grandfather whose ashes have been tossed to the wind, as it will be for my father's and my own. Pine Tree Ballads offers an idiosyncratic view of both the emotional complexity of family as well as the poetic significance of a plot of land. The images often depict scenes that hover on the verge of narrative, yet remain mysterious. I think families need, even require, several narrative versions of their life. This is one version of mine.
Pine Tree Ballads reflects what I hope seeps into the soil and grows eternally in the land and sea to feed the hearts of future generations. In essence, these images are my memoir, as a grandson, a son, and a father, reflecting upon an outer landscape becoming an inner one.
