Barn Prints from Northern Maine

These delicate old barns of weathered shingles are in disrepair. They are still strong though, more than a century old. Even during their slow and splintering demise, the shingles hold onto each other, standing and leaning firm.  I press my hands gently against the paper.  I feel the grain and contours of the wood. An image then appears, a mirror of their tenacious existence against the elements.  They remind me of myself.

Ink, wood, paper, and human hands work together. This quartet marked the beginnings of human mass communication.  Early printings were holy documents of words and images, first by hand, then by printing press.  I feel somewhat spiritual when in a creative process and the barns seem almost like a holy structure but without an appropriate name that appreciates their function.  They are the place where the land, people, animals, and the earth join together in a shelter and a way of life in tune with nature through all seasons, guided by sunrise, sunset, birth, life, growth, and death.

  excerpt of book yet to be published:  barns and bark.   paul cahan