[Center]In Dreams I heard a whisper of how the stars would come to be, that from the slumber of the deep dark they would come, rising from the sea. Alone you fell where the light forgot you, where the gull cry could not reach. In the bed of sea-grass you came home to me, the last shimmer of your light to rise as starlight through the sea's long night.

Dream beloved and let the dark be filled with light and in the nebula's languishing weave, we belong.

~ ∞ ~

I'll follow you through the fields

through the cities across the lands

through mountains and valleys

down to the beaches and sands

Into the ocean we will go

a mighty crescendo of cold

down and down...

but I have my prize

my prize of gold

my circlet of stone

down and down...

our path an endless song

as the stars come to take us...

to where we belong.

~ ∞ ~[/center]

First and foremost this is my first true collaboration with the amazingly talented :IconFoxAmoore: whose patience and tireless inspiration has helped this piece find it's way to completion. It has been an astounding experience to work with him and has taken the creative process to a whole new level for me. Music has always fueled my work..and to have a piece created taylored to the artwork being created has been a profound experience that I hope to repeat again and again *nudges Fox!*. Fox Actually wrote two compositions for this piece and did several revisions of the final version. I was amazed at his speed and his energy in creating his work.

[/center]

A bit on the personal story of this piece. It was actually started late last year and was mired with indecision until I shared my progress with Fox and he suggested a collab. The piece, as with the music, evolved in meaning and direction as it came together.

The idea originally started with the story of a woman who lost her beloved to the sea and would wander the shores making circlets of stone and driftwood in homage to her lost beloved until one day she came no more. In the story she fell to the bottom of the sea where the sea-grass held her close and she was reunited with her lost love at last. Another idea diverged from here stemming from my fascination with both the ocean and the stars. In it I likened the sea with the sky and imagined that the stars were born in the lonely dark of the ocean and rose from it's cold depths to populate the sky. The final iteration rests somewhere between these two stories...but really it is just a lucid dream of the spirit.

I hope you all enjoy the journey painted by our collaborative effort..

Tools: Photoshop, wacom intuos

Size: 9000x4288 at 300dpi

Prints: yes

~