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The Eskimo drummer is from the Pacific Northwest. I felt that the artistry of the carver deserved an appropriate setting: In a redwood forest, facing the moonlight, lit by a fire. The forest was actually near Mendocino California, where any such fire would be strictly forbidden!
The base image is a large marsh filled with lotus blossoms and seed pods. To me this made Great Meadows in Concord a magical place. So I added a huge Great Egret, guardian spirit of all birds, with a crown of flying osprey. The Egret is watching a large glowing golden seed, clearly a dragon egg about to hatch. Much Oriental symbology present here.
This tells a linear story, like in a scroll, but from left to right. My wife and I were together over 40 years, till death did us part. Near the end, I was studying physics and she was singing Balkan music. After a sudden short illness, our paths diverged. She died and through that went away, somewhere… I went to Vienna to learn more German and to study music. The drummer is beating time to emphasize the cosmic finality of death.
This composite is like the garden bench one. The Papal Palace at Avignon is spectacular and huge, but largely empty. I had taken a picture of a great hall that absolutely begged for a grand celebration. For another exercise in breaking artist’s block, I had photographed an old garlic head and had used it to replace a lighthouse. I had imagined that it was actually the cloaked spaceship of an interstellar traveler visiting Earth for the first time. From that I got the idea that the traveler would have wanted an audience with the Pope. Being a bit unclear on Earth’s timeline, he thought there was still a Pope sitting in Avignon. One of the old Popes conducted the audience via a Papal time tunnel. The giant musician is actually a Santon, a clay Nativity figurine about 6 cm high.
After my wife died I moved from our home in the country to an apartment in the city. The apartment managers gave me a key ring with “welcome home” on it. I liked my apartment, but I thought the message was gently mocking me. So, with the magic of compositing, I froze it into a pond.