Friday 20 July 2012

Paper sun, paper moon, paper girl, paper world

If I was an artist, I would bring these photographs to life.

This is the story I would tell

Balsa model of Forest Service buildings, Wellington. Winder, Duncan, 1919-1970 :Architectural photographs. Ref: DW-4287-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://beta.natlib.govt.nz/records/22355002
A little papery woman in a papery sunfrock, with spaghetti straps and a slim sash and a full skirt, wearing a papery wide-brimmed hat and carrying a papery wicker basket wanders down the slope.

She lays out her papery blanket under one of the perfect trees, and spreads out her papery picnic: her papery thermos, her teacup, her paper-wrapped sandwich, her papery apple.

The papery sun arcs above the scene as she quietly eats her meal, and then hangs overhead, casting lancing shadows over the hills, as she reads her paperback novel.

Time passes.

Balsa model of Forest Service buildings, Wellington. Winder, Duncan, 1919-1970 :Architectural photographs. Ref: DW-4288-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://beta.natlib.govt.nz/records/22499242
Slowly, then more quickly, the papery sun begins moving again. The shadows grow longer, and a papery crescent moon rises over the edge of the scene. For a few, exquisite, breathless moments, the papery sun and the papery moon hang in tandem over the papery woman’s head. Then the sun drops away, the papery woman picks up her papery blanket, and shakes it out …

Balsa model of Forest Service buildings, Wellington. Winder, Duncan, 1919-1970 :Architectural photographs. Ref: DW-4289-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://beta.natlib.govt.nz/records/22890803
 … and she and her picnic and her paperback novel burst into a swirling shower of shadowy papery shards, blow across the scene, and disappear from sight.

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