Forest Theater, Chapel Hill, NC

On UNC's campus is an old outdoor amphitheater called the Forest Theater.

The panorama below (click to see a much larger view, and to pan from side to side) is taken from stage left and shows the stage and pans around to the seats.

Trees grow on the stage, including a large holly.

I took these photos with almost continuous thunder rumbling in the background as a storm approached from the south. It added to the drama of this strange space, which feels like a ruin or folly of some kind. The way trees and other plants grow within and around it invited me to imagine it was discovered recently, and excavated.

There are windows in the lighting towers and the stone building at the top of the amphitheater. I took a shot up through one of the towers for a previous post.

Every year, in late summer, the Paperhand Puppet Intervention group creates a series of skits with huge puppets, moving props, and dancers, which ends at dark with a narrated paper silhouette show. It's all magic. Check out the slide show of some of their past puppets at the link above. (The last photo is not mine - it's linked from the Paperhand Puppet site.)






















>>>> Appendix de Grenouille #2 <<<< It's an interesting space where Grenouille lives and I do my artwork. Our oldest son has the big bonus room as his bedroom, and he and I have matching work tables in there. The walls are lined with old furniture, and shelves, and every surface is covered with structures, contraptions, specimens, stuffed animals from earlier days, and Halloween costumes. Here is Grenouille visiting the famous tomb of a beloved princess. Just out of view are pinwheels and the wax stubs of candles from Easter Vigil Masses of years past. There are Swedish painted animals, sculpey creations of his own design, a small wicker chicken, a metal fire engine... All appears to be guarded by a large wooden model of a praying mantis. It reminds me of Hamjamser.