Silent+Woods

Silent Woods  Silent woods. Only in a quiet darkness far from what we know as civilization does one really have time to take a second look. As humans we do not pay too much attention to our surroundings, and on the rare occasion we do, we see things we regret, things that once found cannot be ignored. It is in the quiet darkness, the silent woods, our demons, our fears, our heartbreak lurks. It is not something we can run from; it traps us like a web. So most choose to ignore it. Ignore the pain, the evil that lurks in all of us. We make ourselves busy with work and school and chores and youtubes and televisions so we never find the time to take a second look. Because in our hearts we know that if that time was ever found, if we were to take that second look, we would see something we would regret very deeply, and there would be nothing we could do.  The title Silent Woods implies an eerie kind of stillness that can't be reached in the modern world we live in. A forest is so alive, with wind and trees and birds, but a quiet forest, a silent forest, is dead, and unnatural. Woods and trees themselves are associated with “woodland” creatures, like squirrels, and nymphs, but a silent wood has something sinister about it. Something is not quiet right when something so full of life and magic is dead quiet.  Nature is a thing to be loved and feared at the same time. It is a dark, beautiful thing. Nature is terrifying, but that does not mean it should not be enjoyed or loved. In Aldous Huxley's novel //Brave New World,// the members of modern civilization are conditioned to fear and hate nature from an early age. As infants citizens are shocked when the go near roses in order to keep them safe from all the pain and grief in nature's world. But it is that very pain and grief that makes us human. Without fear, we would not know safety, and without sadness we would not know joy.  In the movie //The Seventh Seal// there is a mysterious character known only as the Silent Girl. She does not speak until the very end when death has come to take her and her comrades away. Throughout the movie she lurks quietly in the background, lingering for the longest after the burning of the witch. She is a person who was not afraid to take a second look at the world around her, and though that brought her pain, it also brought her a calm serenity.  When I saw the dried leaves I placed in my box I started to trace their veins. It reminded me of the branching arms of the urban myth monster the Slender Man, a creature that lurks unseen in the forest and brings chaos to the lives of those that find him. I decided to model my own tall man after him, using torn dried leaves glued to a rough outline. After that I realized that I would need a forest for him to hide in, like he does in they myths. I used fallen branches to create my own deserted woods. Rosemary is used for cleansing a house of evil, so I decide to place that on the four corners of the box, with the lock in the center front, to show that something forbidden was lurking in the woods. The candle in the corner is surrounded by a mixture of sea salt and peppermint tea, two things also used for cleansing. The rocks are there to add to the forest feel of the piece, and the cherry blossoms show that even in the darkness there is beauty. I used black and white thread, representing darkness and purity, to web everything together and to somewhat secure my lurking man. The thread was loosely dropped to give it a more organic appearance. 