Monday, October 6, 2014

"Ammonite" by Ieuan Edwards

Image posted with the permission of the artist. More linocuts by Edwards can be found at his website, The Black Gold Press.

The young man in this image is not smiling (his face is serious, even skull-like.) But I am. I know it's done from an old photo taken to show off, in terms of human scale, the tremendous size of this ammonite fossil. But the background print makes me think of old-fashioned wallpaper, and instantly I associate this image with a high school band geek in uniform being compelled (probably by his mother) to stand beside his sousaphone for a nice, family album photo.

And really, in the grand scheme of things, what is the difference between a bored teenager's sousaphone and the fossilized husk of a creature that went extinct millions of years before humans were even a whisper on the breeze of the African savanna?

No comments:

Post a Comment