thresholds

in response to the previous post, artist friend allyson mellberg taylor recommend that i take a look at leslie bellavance's work. i was immediately drawn to her 'threshold' series. the work is digitally made by altering antique photographs that was once populated by people, their shapes no longer filling the focal points. this allows for the quiet of the often overlooked backgrounds to take center stage, often amalgams of different images of landscapes, making a new place the eye is drawn to. 

the word 'threshold' always makes me think of "the hero's journey" in relation to joseph campbell's writings on the 'monomyth' idea, which in a flash, is a narrative literary device that has spanned cultures and generations in which, the hero, who lives in the 'ordinary' world is called to quest, to a far a way strange land freckled with supernatural terror and darkness, to rescue someone or something or to fight a battle, of which he is often victorious. once he crosses the first threshold into this new territory (both literally & figuratively,) he will never be the same again, and even should he return 'home', his new skin of 'otherness' will never leave him. . .