I found this one looonely tree stump at Key's View, in Joshua Tree - it reaches out in the most peculiar way, and the day I was there, patchy clumps of clouds were moving quickly by, casting their shadows on the hills - when the immediate area around the stump was in shade, the juxtaposition against the bright hillsides was kinda interesting - the stump 'reached' somewhere, 'to be continued' later, i thought...

The violin was sitting atop a store front in a 'ghost town' of sorts, in the 'Gold Rush' Sutter's Mill area of California - I was traveling w/ a friend who wanted to find a _real_ ghost town, so we were 'map hopping' from spot to spot in some guide she'd gotten - we didn't find the arche-typical G'town, but we did find a place that was attempting to re-invent itself - as a 'tourist trap', I think.

Both our reactions were "yech! on ! ...to the next stop!.." but I did like this huge ( 10-15 feet?) fiddle, complete w/ bow, and snapped a frame. It's 'raw'/rough hewn... and comical.... It was during time spent pawing over proof sheets that the two images came together... the violin bow, and broken tree stump are made for each other.