The Heart of the Storm

The guardian angel figure, hand upraised as if in blessing, consoles the cowering woman within a protective stand of California western juniper trees. Their faces obscured, the women portray archetypes rather than individuals. Trees tortured by lightning and twisted by the winds recur in Anne Brigman's work, symbolizing independence and an adaptation to life's adversity. In order to achieve a sense of atmosphere appropriate to the scene, Brigman altered her negative by hand, drawing and scratching lines onto the negative before printing. She created the halo above the figure's head at left and the sweep of lines meant to appear as a translucent, windblown garment on the figure at the right.