Tag Archives: grief and loss

Altered Horizons 76

Altered Horizons 76 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and stress.

In the middle of a bright sunny day fatigue was overtaking me. All I wanted to do was nap. There was no way I could muster up the energy to do yard work so, instead, I promised myself ice cream if I could finish up one more fabricated landscape in Photoshop. I got lost in the project, as I knew I would, forgetting the ice cream and the fatigue, as well as whatever was depressing and stressing me. I worked away until the day grew dark and it was time for dinner. And in the end, I felt inspired, proud, and productive.

In Photoshop, the beautiful slope of a horse’s back became a moonlit hill. The belly of another horse fit neatly into the curve of the back to make a night sky. Then, using the dodge tool, I etched out a moon into the smooth dark horse-belly sky.

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Altered Horizons 73

Altered Horizons 73 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with loss.

On Sunday mornings when I was a kid, my father would take my sister and me out flying in his small airplane. Gazing out the window, over the noise of the airplane engine I would sing Susie Little Susie, an old folksong about a poor girl and barefooted geese that couldn’t afford to buy new shoes. All the while I picked out tiny houses or teeny-tiny individuals down below us. “God bless the people who live there,” I’d say, from up above the world. I felt very privileged and close to God up there. And, though I hadn’t experienced the loss of anything greater than a goldfish or two back then, I knew that everyone needed someone praying for them, needed someone watching over them. Feeling fairly secure, I sent out love and blessings to strangers.

These days, I pick out bits and pieces of my photographed images to create small worlds in Photoshop. Maybe it’s the calm or maybe it’s elation—something about what goes on in my head when I’m photo-shopping reminds me of flying over the world in the back of my father’s plane. For this fabricated landscape, I pumped up the blue color of a slate slab so I could make it into a river or a bay. I paired it with a mossy patch of ground I found in a Maine woods this summer, to create a fake aerial landscape.

 

Altered Horizons 73

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Altered Horizons 72

Altered Horizons 72 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with loss.

As a recent graduate of David Kessler’s Grief Educator Program, I am viewing grief differently now: I see grief as the pain of having loved, and view the pain of loss as a catalyst for purposeful action. Harrowing wounds have become my cherished scars. And the life I once saw as ruined due to loss is now a full life that honors my beloved ones who died.

One also needs to be flexible in the ways of viewing things when creating fabricated landscapes. I flipped last week’s cement “sky” upside down to turn it into this week’s land. Then, in Photoshop, I changed last week’s red slate hill into this week’s teal blue sky. Or—if you can imagine moving the horizon line upwards off the picture—this week’s landscape becomes an aerial view over the shore of a calm bay.

 

Altered Horizons 72

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Altered Horizons 71

Altered Horizons 71 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with change.

Every night, walking the dog in the driveway, I look to the sky and sing or pray or talk to my daughter who died. To me, the night sky is not a vast void. It is peppered with stars or lumbering clouds, falling snow, raindrops, and sometimes fireflies. It can carry fog or whipping winds. It can reverberate in frog song or roar with thunder. Though I look up and howl into the heavens, I know that is not where I will find my beloved ghosts.

One day in August, shortly after the rains stopped, I photographed a red slate walkway so that the mortar between the slabs of slate might be envisioned as the night sky.

 

Altered Horizons 71

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Altered Horizons 70

Altered Horizons 70 Robin Botie of ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with loss.

How was I going to photograph endless piles of books for two whole hours, I wondered. My photography class was visiting the building that houses The Friends of the Library Book Sale, and just seeing all the shelves and boxes crammed from floor to ceiling with books was activating some of my darkest deep-hidden emotional responses.

For months I’d been de-cluttering my house. Clothing, kitchenware, tchotchkes, outdated electronics… old books, many of which were among the accumulations at The Friends of the Library. My home had felt lighter and I’d felt less depressed after unloading so much of my stuff. But here, in this jam-packed place, I felt my breath trapped in my chest. It was like I could sense the countless agitated souls of all the homeless books taking flight. And I had this unshakeable need to escape.

It took several days to gather up the courage to view the photos I’d taken. Finally, dropping them into Photoshop, I rotated an image of shelved books ninety degrees and extended the concrete floor to concoct an unsettling gray sky. Then, de-saturating the color on the trim of an old oak bookcase, I crafted a frame for my fabricated landscape of the week.

 

 

 

Altered Horizons 70

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Altered Horizons 69

Altered Horizons 69 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with change.

“You’re gonna have a great new life, Meena-Mouse,” I told the quivering mouse in the Hav-a-Heart trap as we approached a nice shady spot in the grass by a stream. “You take care of yourself little-one. There’s a food store right over there and if you follow the stream you’ll come to houses nearby.” I held the cage up to examine Meena one last time.

In addition to the Trader Joe’s Organic peanut butter I’d used to lure the poor creature into the trap, I’d fed it oats, bits of chocolate, and blueberries cut in half. I’d stuffed pieces of tissue through the top of the trap so it could have a soft bed. And first thing in the morning I’d driven down off my hill with the mouse in the trap, carefully secured in the passenger seat, so it wouldn’t be caged up any longer than necessary.

The last few mice I’d let loose had frantically clung to the trap with their tiny feet. That had freaked me. I’d had to clunk the trap on the ground several times to get the mouse to drop out, to go free. This time I was prepared for that. But what I wasn’t prepared for was the mouse immediately springing out with a fast flying leap—right into the water.

For this week’s fabricated landscape, I flipped a photo of trees reflected at the edge of my pond. The frame was pieced together in Photoshop from a warm scarf.

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