Photographer and Painter Cathy Cone is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this photo essay. From the project ‘Rewinding Forward. To see Cathy’s body of work, click on any image.

“Rewinding Forward ” is an exploration of an inner story revealed through an outer situation. There needs to be a certain dissonance with an edgy quality in the photographs that I enjoy making. My studio practice is a guide and a way of rewinding forward. I’m interested in the exploration of psychological states as a way of creating labyrinths between earth and heaven through my camera. The making and rearranging are intertwined in a tug of poetic surrender. If everything is aligned then there’s the possibility of connection. I’m trying to express a lifeline through a continuum of inquiry and associations. The forward and backward hooks up with earlier experiences as to transform, update and reveal new creative dispensations. This body of work is a dialectic between grief and anger, life and death, hope and mourning.

Transformation is a bridge with the potential for magic, alchemy and poetry. Poetry is often a spring board in my creative practice. The last stanza in Marianne Moore’s poem “Nevertheless” is a magical example.

“The weak overcomes its

menace, the strong over-

comes itself. What is there

like fortitude! What sap

went through that little thread

to make the cherry red!”