Tree Bernstein
words & pictures
CLICK on image to open or advance
The Portal
Lucid Dreamers
SOMETIMES I DREAM MYSELF INTO THE PICTURE, which then becomes a dream come true when the collage is complete. The monochromatic blue characters in some of these dreamscape collages came from a discarded history book about despot generals. I realized later that the blue illustrations were actually blueprints of an old unattributed painting. Turns out, cyanotypes were lurking about every-where just waiting for me to notice.
Melancholy
The
Book Club
How to be Melancholy
The Melancholy Book Club meets monthly at a sad café on the other side of town where nobody goes.
Samuel Pepys will be there, naturally, with his Diary. St. Madame Ginoux and St. Mark can be depended upon to ardently discuss the latest book club novel, while Rosetti's lover will be rather bored, yet slightly entertained by a slender volume of
amusing poems while her pet Kingfisher will keep an eye out for red caviar.
Naturally, the book club is a melancholy affair—and is always well attended.
Bucolic Disasters
Proud Mammals
Animals are the messengers who
tell the stories in this series of Bucolic Disasters. The background images are photos of the country-side near where I live in Northern Colorado. Into that wide-open photo space, the collage is imposed as a surrealistic fable or perhaps a line from an old familiar song.