Darfur Fridge – thursday image prompt

(updated contributions to the collective storybook are found on the Storybook pages.)

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Hiking in the woods I found this rusting refrigerator that hunters had been using for target practice. I retrieved the door and it sat in the studio for a year or so until surfing the web I happened across some drawings by children who were survivors or refugees of war or civil unrest. The pictures were collected by Human Rights Watch workers helping the children and were put on the web here. A quick search found kid’s drawings dating back to the Spanish Civil War, WW1, WW2, the bombing of London, Germany, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon Chechnya and on, and on, and on…

I was moved to copy some of the drawings onto the fridge door, eventually adding some of my own but a good many of the drawings came directly from the kids. I added hunter/warrior figures found in cave paintings.

I then traced the figures onto steel plate and cut them out using a plasma torch. I painted some and backed them all with magnets so they are completely movable refrigerator magnets.

I have not been giving a back-story with the images thus far but this one seemed to ask for some explanation. If anyone feels moved to write from it I would love to read what you have to say. As always, if this image doesn’t suit feel free to take another.

(All 3 pics above are the same door, different shots. Steel cut-outs are on table. Sorry, have neither door nor good photos with me now.)

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I do this kind of work intuitively, trying not to analyze as I work. The images build and layer. I try to trust that inner sense, try to choose the best on the fly, sometimes backtracking, painting out, painting over, sometimes progressing to a finish. Sometimes knowing when I’ve finished, sometimes..

…I’ll ask my son, who’s eight, what he thinks.

“Well,” he says, “You’re making it different, but you aren’t making it better.”

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All of this is just to say that your thoughts on these things are as good as mine, often more interesting and sometimes more fun, and I welcome them.

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This week::

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Prester John, from crackedheadblog wrote faith without works.

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why-paisley??, rockin’ girl blogger, wrote darfur fridge

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expalla, known only as expalla (want help setting up that blog? write me) wrote a silly little door

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christine, prolific author of mariacristina wrote Lantana using the painting below as a starting point

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