40

the air was threaded with a murmurous refrain of minstrel winds

I adore the phrase "minstrel winds"!!!

39

1. In the sky the bright stars glittered,

38

The Fair Maid Who,
was grieved to the core of my heart
After a time she grew tired,
"I've been thinking a great deal about him lately.
"Good night," she said
a bit anxiously.

37

air, water, trees and other natural things
spirits in rocks
trees in shrubs decomposing
secret ponds
breeze, so softly blowing
I thought I was
LOST

I am bugged now, because there is a show called LOST! When I did this page, there was no lost!

36

Her obsession is somewhat puzzling. What would drive a woman
with considerable beauty and substantial resources to suffer the
toil and potentially serious injuries of
a labor of love
a sinister looking black pool
motionless
dying and living birds
clots of dead grass


The swamplike vegetation on this page is really insane, and not very characteristic of the Adirondacks. I had attempted to make this an Adirondack Fairy Tale, in pride of this beautiful park that surrounds me...But sometimes you have to stretch the truth in order to fulfill the story line. I think these trees are from a southern swamp, not a northern forest.

35

the
swamp
grew black and rotten
she put on galoshes!
it became colder and colder.

This spread is hysterical!!! If all spreads could come out like this, I would be so damned lucky!

34

She makes the most of every moment.
Beruffled in translucent tones
this lusty garland of russet leaves, and several black
enameled leaves. In the back set a bow of watered
ribbon and lace.
that mount up to perfection.

I am weary of this spread. The Fair Maid shouldn't be nekked till later on...BUT I love the weird waxy horn pipes. I may have to keep it in.

33

She had some respite,

rather remote
feeling lonely
in the black moss bog

The dripping background was in an art magazine. I don't remember which one, Art Forum or something like that. This was a few years ago I did this page—— PRE-graffiti craze. I really like the dripping paint thing. I don't care if it is in vogue or what the deal is. There is a time and a place for dripping tho, and apparently when you are remote and lonely in your black moss bog, that is a good time.

32

In the beginning
Round and round she whirled—in space—
in the blackness—in confusion. Slower and
slower she turned- a mass of warring sensations
pounding down upon her.
Heaven turned is to hell.
waiting for
the great oneness.

Very Important words! I like the spiritual relapse on this page.Heaven is turned to hell it seems, for most people waiting for God. I won't go into my personal religious preferences here, but I am really happy these words are in my book.

31

Sometimes it's the little thorns
that prick hardest
I shall re-find you in Eternity
journey into the wilderness in order to reach
"You my fellow fine,

The claws instead of hands is a reference to the "prick" in the text.

30

Love, I am lonely, and so far from thee!
In the long shady branches
Of the dark pine tree

29

Your ears ring, your heart sick, breathless on the bank of a brook.

28

The beauty and grace of a
young deer frolicking in
the summer meadow...
the delight of a baby
raccoon being startled
by a tiny green frog...
the charm of two chipmunks sharing their
food with a little bird...such scenes from
nature have a very special fascination for us
What kind of birds would you expect
to find in a bog?
What kind of frogs would you expect
to find in a swamp?
Are the trees young or stunted?
What is the appearance of the water?
How does it feel to walk on the mulch?
What plants can you find that belong
to the swamp community?
The bog community?
"Where?" is he


The Fair Maid attempts to turn her interests elsewhere...on the bog and the world that surrounds. But in the end, her thoughts succomb to feelings of missing her dream partner.

27

feeling so blue
then I think
about you

A strange spread, because it is kinda tacky. Not sure about this one...It's symmetry is odd when the rest of the book is so free for all.

26

Then she sighed. She had never
before minded being alone. Now she dreaded it. When she was
alone now she felt so dreadfully alone.


At this point in my personal life, I was realizing my marriage was going south. I kept feeling that being alone is one thing. Being alone with someone right next to you was quite another. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was expressing my loneliness in my creation of this book. The act of creation, upon retrospect, appears to be quite autobiographical sometimes. I can see parallels between what was happening in my life, and what is happening in the artwork all the time. In fact, towards the middle of this book, I was unable to complete the pages, in accordance with the plot. This project sat for 2 full years untouched, and unfinished.
There is a huge section here, perhaps 25 spreads (50 pp.) that are melancholy moments for the Fair Maid. I am not certain if I need so many pages in this portion of the story and plot. It is something I am looking at if I need to cut anywhere. It may appear out of balance with the ending. I don't want to end to seem short in comparison.

25

A Bog dream that's bound to come true

Foreshadowing what is to come...

This page has the most excellent Bog word. I was really into type at the time, and I think this was prompted by all the cutting of letters and words for this book. I wanted each page to have interesting words to read, an interesting display of words also for the eyes, and creative words both with rhyming and prose mixed together. AEZ did an issue with odd typography. This is helping me date when I started the book, since it has been a few years!

24

She had come from a place where
nothing was ever certainly known
Life in a Bog Dream

I don't think anything is Ever certainly known. Whether you are in a bog dream, or a forest, or real life...the only constant is change.

23

Trapped in.
The dominion of
a dream
the maiden all forlorn,
lay in the humble
bog
nests among the trees;
Ponderously, fitfully, unevenly,
I know that somewhere there are trees,
And brooks that go meandering,
Somewhere in gardens there are bees
With hollyhocks philandering;
I know from signs that mark the sky,
And something tells me it's "that
desire which comes
from thinking
of him

22

in treasured scraps of antique chintz
This sense of naturalness and ease is in fact achieved

21

Lost in a maze of
some great, unshareable sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for
all eternity. We can never pierce its infinite mystery—we may
only wander, awed and spellbound, on the outer fringe of it.
The woods call to us with a hundred voices.
A timeless far-flung
spirit in a nest
of dreams

When I was working on these pages, way back a few years ago....this spread quickly became one of my favorites. I don't know if it was just the green of the page or what. Now when I look at the book complete, there are so many favorites to pick from.

20

The brook that ran
across the corner dimpled pellucidly in the shadows of the
birches. The poppies along its banks were like shallow cups of
moonlight.


The Fair maid returns to bog life, and begins a period of sorrow and longing.

19

Bored "Nature has her rubbish heaps." I said.
I was so heartsick—I ran away to
come to
stand on a mountain
with a young moon kissing it,
TIME
maneuver among snow-capped peaks above
music of the
wind in the firs
you will have
what you wish!
things hoped for. But bide a wee."
acknowledgement of the inevitable
swept away
blissful comfort
wear it always. Dont' wait
know you've found the perfect
man.

That was a wonderful day in the little house of dreams.

And so ends the dreamy moment that the fair maid is having..She is bored with her regular life, bored to tears. She curses the natural world, the bog, her duties "Nature has her rubbish heaps". She stands on a mountain and hears the whispers of the world....and she learns that she should have what she wishes for....It is all too true.

18

bound about her head with a crimson ribbon. She
wore a dress of some dark material, very plainly made, but
swathed about her waist, outlining its fine curves, was a vived
girdle of red silk. Her hands, clasped over her knee, were brown
and somewhat work-hardened; but the skin of ther throat and
cheeks was as white as cream. A flying gleam of sunset broke
through a low-lying western cloud and fell across her hair.
Presently she scrambled down the steep path to the little
nest of moss on the rocks beside the creek. Spray
from the rushing stream would keep the moss green all summer.

17

a dear little home—and love—and happiness
—and glad dreams—everything I wanted—and never had—and
never could have. Oh, never could have! That was what stung!
Whirling round and round in the northern House of Dreams
I am a
slave to the spirit of the quest.
nothing but a dreamer.

16

The forest has its own ways of determining what it will be.


the universe gives us what we call forth.

15

Subservient to his will, and for him made
him," she said. He was someone to be
worshipped from afar. it would obviously
never be possible for them to meet.

Again, I look back at these words and they feel lame and weak. When I composed this book I was in an unhappy marital situation And I suppose I dreamt of the ideal... or realized the reality??....But at this point in time, away from it now ...almost divorced from it...I feel as tho this position of subservience is really pathetic, and olde-tyme stereotypical!
That's just exactly why this is a fairy tale...so I can get away with that kind of thing.
Besides, that is the way it appears to be in life most of the time. Women are subservient to the male of the species....and I guess embracing it could be more fun than bucking the system. Hence, she fondles herself.
That does sound so crass. But this is an explanation of symbols and pages and therefore, I am going to tell it like it is.

Would the fair maid ever meet "him"? This perfect kindred soul in her dreams??? It doth seem impossible.

14

The water sparkled and crooned
the birches threw dappled shadows
in the shade of the mushroom house

He stands under the mottled light of a Tiffany mushroom....

13

"I think I would have found a "kindred" spirit,'"
I thought you were so beautiful-I longed for weeks after to find
out who you were.

This page is key to the whole dream sequence...I notice I haven't accented it much with the words. (frown!) The fair maid comes upon her literal dream man, under the mushroom house, and of course as is typical with dreams, she had no idea who he was. But she seemed to know right away he was a "kindred spirit." This terminology was taken from Anne of Green Gables. I had 3 volumes that were old and shabby kicking around the studio while I was working on various pages and they are now cut up and shred, but always beloved...and now, they lend meanings to my own work. When I was a young girl, I had read the book and was quite taken with the descriptions of scenery and some of the ideas. One of those ideas was the kindred spirit....I have found many of these in my life. And here, the fair maid thinks she found one in her dreams.

I thought about this later, and resented that I deeply felt as tho a man of my dreams was the objective in life! But as I assess my life I notice that I really do live this way, thinking a man is what makes me complete. Perhaps it is somehow...but I resent it anyways.

12

The maid began to see animals
in a strange place
Men
remarkable fetching and transgressive in the
celestial bog garden

11

There's something going on that
I don't understand

a jolly motley throng
a startling apparition
the "animal forest" was in the dream civilization
clearly and distinctly an
apparition
a fools paradise of imaginary innocence.

There is always something going on that is not understood. Isn't that just the nature of life? Especially in dreams we seek to find the hidden meaning, the essence of ourselves....but not always can our answers be found.

10

The fair maid
had an opportunity of seeing bodies in all
attitudes and from all sides.
it occurred in broad daylight
macabre chaos. the lovely
interplay of light and shade
suggest movement or space

In her dream, the fair maid saw men as animals, animals as men...and found that that she had her own animalistic tendencies.They were surreal and not threatening, in fact enticing.

9

As she dreams
the most amazing bestial occurrence.

Lying in her boggy slumber, the fair maid has a dream...and of course as with all dreams, things are not as they seem. Men with bestial bodies....

8

the Enchanted-land rules
on some coast of fairyland
curiously
far away
the Maiden asleep.
All in the greenwood.
Among the green weeds,
hidden by leaves.

7

as in a glass, reflected there,
night is the noon
sun is the moon

this verse is one of my favorites.

6

Golden slumbers
Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,
A drowsy maid snuggled down But the earth is not asleep.

After much bog work of filling the pitcher plants and picking flies out of the sundews and such, the fair maid retires to her fresh nest, and she bundles down amidst the moss for some rest. Consciousness of the world is suspended, but the world is not at rest. It never is.

5

When there's a cloudburst
by willows, in a blossomy brook valley.
against a big, whispering fir wood,
You achieve a radiantly
healthy look.
and you're set to relax.

Then away she flew to gather more grass
and twigs and string for the nest.
clippings of boxwood, spruce and cedar, and snips of holly and pine. Add pods,
cones

Water is the source of life .Cloudbursts, showers....The water flows. This is a bog, after all. Without water, a bog does not exist.

4

warm showers
gently back and forth
off-the-shoulder
washed the time away

A sunshiny shower
Won't last half an hour.
Summer breeze
send the showers,
come and smell my flowers.

She enjoys moments of repose in the sparkling moist bog. Standing among the pitcher plants, allowing gentle water to shower on her, she is nurtured by that which she nurtures.

3

She could not stop staring at
into the otherness of nature, and see ourselves.
believed in the magical side of nature, dabbled in al-
chemy and mysteries, and was constantly experimenting with
magnets that would produce family harmony, or universal
salves, or celestial water

Just because you can't see things, doesn't mean they don't exist. The fair maid believes in things that aren't always seen. Sometimes there are powerful hidden forces, alchemy and mysteries, that are best left unexplained. The fair maid peers into the bog, looking for a harmonious experience with nature.

2

What a fine place to build a nest.
She went away but soon came back with some twigs and grass.



Like a bird, she was away and came back....in order to find the parts for her nest. She literally IS going away and coming back by her body structure.

I immediately found in creating a book like this that endless images of one particular person don't exist, at least not 100 of them and in different facial expressions! By simple force I must have each page hold a different fair maid. But how fitting this really is, because the fair maid is universal and timeless. She is a persona, not a person, hence her lack of a real name--or specific facial identity. Even in her lack of identity, she is typical of most females in most societies, playing a crucial but background role in life. She fills the typical female roles, tending to the home, cleaning, gathering. She accepts the duties, knowing no other way.

1

The fair maid who,
Goes to the fields
And washes in dew
brush the flies off her and
is building a
nest



The fair maid could be anyone, anywhere, anytime. She is represented by many faces, and none are the same, just as any one of us could be anyone, anytime we choose. This particular fair maid is a she, and fond of corsets. She is a maid, a servant, subservient to the world, and like most females she feels the worlds' needs come first, not hers. Before she builds the nest, she cleans her own person, brushing flies/debris off her, almost a sanctification and purification, a ritual. She wants to build her nest her way, the way she needs it to be done, by herself.