scott fife

i have just discovered the amazing scott fife and i am so IN LOVE with his work! fife uses archival cardboard, screws and glue to construct his work. delightfully rugged yet astonishingly refined. exhibiting sine 1976 these photos were from his exhibition called 'bear season' that was held this summer at platform gallery, seattle. oh boy do i wish i had been there! previous works include bridget bardot, john wayne and a t-rex and elvis presley!

My Friend the Bear

Down in the bone myth of the cellarof this farmhouse, behind the empty fruit jars the whole wall swings open to the room where I keep the bear. There's a tunnel to the outside of the far wall that emerges in the lilac grove in the backyard but she rarely uses it, knowing there's no room around here for a freewheeling bear. She's not a dainty eater so once a dayI shovel shit while she lopes in playful circles. Privately she likes religion—from the bedroom I hear her incantatory moans and howls below me—and April 23rd, when I open the car trunk and whistle at midnight and she shoots up the tunnel, almost airborne when she meets the night. We head north and her growls are less friendly as she scents the forest-above-the-road smell. I release her where I found her as an orphan three years ago, bawling against the dead carcass of her mother. I let her go at the head of the gully leading down to the swamp, jumping free of her snarls and roars. But each October 9th, one day before bear season she reappears at the cabin frightening the bird dogs. We embrace ear to ear, her huge head on my shoulder, her breathing like a god's.

–Jim Harrison
from Shape of the Journey