december fotoplay : gallery 7

Here in gallery 7 of the December Fotoplay cards, you’ll see a Guggenheim-esque sculpture, “stained glass” windows, and a collage that shines a spotlight on our wondrous world. The incredible card above was made by a friend from nearly thirty years ago, when I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. My friend Nina lived on my floor in the dorm on 27th Street, and she too was a Fine Art major (though only for a semester before she transferred to the University of Michigan to major in architecture.) Nina and I were in love with the Guggenheim and whenever we had time, we’d go there together, to see the space where “one day, we would have our Retrospectives.” Little tears rolled down my cheeks when I opened Nina’s email and saw these photos:

The cards below were created by two sisters, Tara and Lila, who live in Maryland, my home state. As their mom tells me, these girls have been on a stained-glass-window-making jag, and when the cards arrived, the tissue and contact paper were all ready to go. The first card was created by Tara, age nine. I love the photograph of the card as much as the card itself:

Lila, age five, created the card below. Kids really know how to show us what winter’s all about, don’t they?

The last card in today’s gallery was made by a friend who lives in Connecticut, and who for years, in every free moment he has had, has traveled to the far ends of planet Earth. Barry made the collage below and emailed it to me with the following note: Hello dear Marcie. My collage is called “How can anyone be depressed or lost in this mind-blowing world?” I received your card and asked myself, “who is this figure looking out at us?” And I took down my map of the world and put it on the floor and then cut your figure out and turned it upside down at the top of the map. And I was flipping through magazines and thought about how fucking beautiful this world is, how beautiful and unfathomable the diversity, the animals, the cultures, what people do and make and invent.

And then I thought it was so unbelievably sad that so many people are depressed and mad and divisive and I thought, how? How? HOW? How can anyone be depressed or lost when there are zebras? When there are boys in tribes in Africa? When there are kangaroos? When there are gorgeous handmade costumes and people that actually still wear them and have rituals that still mean something to them?

How can people be depressed when there was Matisse who left us so many joyous, colorful paintings to look at? How can people feel lost when there are bicycles to ride, and hot sunshine to feel? How can people be depressed when they can see a photograph of photojournalist Herbert Ponting, standing on his head on Antarctic snow, during the British expedition to the Antarctic in 1910? How can people be depressed when there are windows to look out of? Wine to savor? Beautiful people to look at, people wearing orange gossamer scarves that blow in the wind? And then I thought that if in fact someone/something was looking out at us, looking out at the whole world, there would only be one face this figure could have. The face of love.