Kirsty Mitchell's Wonderland at The Paine

 The Pure Blood of a Blossom

This weekend, I attended the Wonderland exhibit at The Paine Art Center here in Oshkosh.  It features the work of photographer Kirsty Mitchell.   They actually had a sign posted encouraging visitors take their own pictures and posting them to social media.  That's a new concept at an art gallery--to have them embrace that.  It's free advertising, in a way. 

The amazing fairy tale photographs came out of Mitchell's grief after her mother and best friend died in 2008 due to a brain tumor.  Her mother was an English teacher, storyteller, and avid reader.  So the stories and the world's Mitchell created for the photographs were a way for her to revisit time with her mother.

This show has so many things going for it -- Fairy Tales, story, amazing photographs, amazing sets, grief and healing, books, flowers, the Woods ...  With a background in fashion design, Mitchell also created all the costumes and sets.  Just as captivating as the final images are the videos explaining how she made everything ...

The Wonderland Book, 2nd Edition from Kirsty Mitchell Photography on Vimeo.

And then, to top it all off, she published a beautiful coffee table book to go along with the exhibit.  What is actually on display at the Paine is just the tip of the iceberg.   The book contains many more photographs from the series, along with commentary, and the Wonderland Diaries as she was going through this journey of grief and healing.

It's the most expensive book I've ever purchased for myself, and I'm glad I did -- I would have regretted passing this up.  She's doing what I wanted to do with the Vasalisa pictures a few years ago ...  But I never really took it further.  It's expensive to buy the costumes, find a model, schedule the time on locations.  And Kirsty clearly had a staff from makeup artists to staging help. 

Mitchell came to our fair city this week to speak about the project. Wow!  Again and again, she said the project was not about her, but her mother.   I wish I could tell her that her mother is right there with her, every step of the way ...  loving how she has blossomed, and come through the other side of her grief.  They don't stop loving us once they die.   It took me a long time to learn that after my friend Sandy died, after beloved dogs died.

She said that she learned to take whatever weather came on her shooting days.  She took that to mean her Mother was present and taking an active part in the making of these images.  And often, the weather added elements she could not have imagined.

When I saw the exhibit, I was a little surprised that it was just the images printed and blown up to 2 meters, but none of the accompanying costumes or props were part of the exhibit (except for the Faerie Key).  One the panel, someone asked about the costumes -- They are all in her house, she has most of them still, is living with most of them still.  She did say that some of them fell apart as soon as the picture was taken ...  So there's the idea of photography being a moment in time-- a momento -- the photograph being the artifact, not the costumes and props. 

She also talked about the preponderance of ships in many of the photos.  Mitchell said the ships signified a journey.  In this case, an inward journey.

She also said, she started out with a lot of these flowery girl pictures, but they didn't really go anywhere -- until she started taking these characters into the swamps and getting dirty with mud and blood, that SHE really started to heal and began to feel better about where she was going with her grief, that something good could come from it. 

I did persevere in the long line to have Kirsty Mitchell sign my book.  I got her autograph!  And no, I did not hold up the line for everyone behind me to get a selfie with her.  I didn't need that ... and the people behind me didn't need that either. 

I'm so glad I went to the show, and her lecture, and that I bought the book.  Janna--You have to see it sometime!