On Elephants...

I’ve been thinking about elephants—in part because my mother loved and collected them, and I spent Valentine’s weekend (one of her favorite holidays) two streets over from where she, my Auntie Bea and grandmother Gabby (whom I never knew) lived during Mom’s childhood. I was in Philadelphia—Mom’s city—for the annual American Craft Retailers Show, walking her streets and connecting with a jeweler who uses vintage molds from the late 1800’s as foundations for her contemporary creations. One of those creations featured an elephant—not just any elephant, but the exact elephant in a ring I wear often, a ring that was my grandmother’s, passed down to my mother in her childhood, and in turn passed down to me when I was about ten years old. Coincidence? I think not.

I’ve also been thinking about elephants and grandmother/mother/daughter bonds in part because a dear friend’s two daughters—one of whom I am godmother for—will have their first babies this year, making her a new grandma twice over.

One of the reasons I have my own love for elephants is the way that mother elephants elicit the help of unmated females, who function as maiden aunts in the raising of the baby elephants. Elephants are matriarchal, and symbolize the strength to overcome obstacles, something my grandmother did in raising two daughters by herself after WWI and through the Great Depression. The bond between generations, coupled with the idea of strength and resiliency, lends itself to subtle visual metaphor. I’ve photographed this idea over time, and found two more images recently that tell this same story. The dandelion image dates from past springs and summers; the scallop shells lay on the beach together exactly as you see them pictured—I did not touch them before I photographed them—and the two trees stood in the snow on my way back home after the Philadelphia trade show. Beauty and visual stories are everywhere, if our eyes and hearts are open.