Tag Archives: upside down world

Altered Horizons 19

Altered Horizons 19 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, composes grief landscapes using Photoshop in her efforts to deal with depression and cope with loss.

On a rainy gray afternoon I rummaged through the house to photograph things that reflected light, things that absorbed light, things with grit, and grooves, and threads, and pronounced textures. It happened to be one of my “bad” days. You know what I mean, one of those colorless days when nothing, not even chocolate cake, can calm the deep aching of a shredded heart.

Tossing together all the holey, groovy, scratchy images in Photoshop, I composed my grief landscape. My sun is a tea strainer I pasted onto a crystal saucer. The rainy sky is my bedroom carpet. The hill is the brim of a hat. And it’s all framed with the drainage strip that keeps floodwaters from entering my home.

 

 

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Altered Horizons 18

Altered Horizons 18 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York photoshops a fabricated landscape of the week in her ongoing healing from loss and dealing with depression.

To save my pond from choking, I raked long sheets of algae out of it and tossed them into great piles on the banks. Desperate to save their cruelly upended lives, snails and other tiny creatures wriggled in the folds of the stuff. I threw it all off into nearby bushes. But not before photographing the exquisite felting of the raw fibers.

Much later I came upon the photo of the white allium ball I’d shot earlier, and knew I had found my landscape of the week.

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Altered Horizons 15

Altered Horizons 15 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fake landscapes with contrived horizons in her effort to deal with change and loss.

It took nearly all summer to find my way back to the old laptop and Photo-shopping. Despite the heat and rain, the past three months I’ve only wanted to be outdoors. If I wasn’t hiking, I was out by the pond. Raking algae, pulling pondweed, scrubbing the slimy stairs leading into the pond, paddling around in the tiny plastic boat. Who am I now, and what is with me, that I can’t sit still? Now that I’d rather push myself to work away in the heat than sit cool and comfy, creating new landscapes in Photoshop?

And that blasted computer. Breaking down at my first attempt to create anything in weeks. It kinda confirmed that outside is where I’m meant to be, for now. In the woods. In the pond, in the weeds. Anywhere but in the house in front of a computer.

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Altered Horizons 14

Altered Horizons 14 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops artificial created landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with loss.Altered Horizons 14

If you cannot find peace, you may need to create some yourself. It may not look or feel like anyone else’s peace. For a short while , standing by the pond in the evenings, I would play Taps on my coronet, feeling transported into a heavenly bliss. My neighbors probably felt like strangling me for disturbing their peace. These days I bring myself comfort and tranquility  photographing water, sky, and weeds swaying in wind, and then mixing them all together into a peaceful landscape in Photoshop.

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Altered Horizons 13

Altered Horizons 13 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops artificial created landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with loss.Altered Horizons 13

Sometimes it feels like the sky is falling. It’s a feeling I have learned to love because I understand now that it is mostly the heaviness of the loss of my daughter. So I put a rose in a sky, and in the background I used scratchy and oozy-goozy textures from a bath towel and soap holder—to echo the rough and slippery sides of life.

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Altered Horizons 12

Altered Horizons 12 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops artificial horizons and fake landscapes in her ongoing therapy to deal with depression and cope with change.Altered Horizons 12

When my life was upended by loss I had to redefine myself and re-find my footing in the world. Recently I began fabricating landscapes, and became obsessed seeking stability and balance as I worked in Photoshop to create tiny micro-environments. I could concoct a horizon line even during bath time. 

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