Layered: curated by Sergio Gomez (33 Contemporay Gallery, Chicago)—David Versluis is one of the featured artists

David Versluis is recognized with this piece in the Layered international group exhibition at the 33 Contemporary Gallery, Chicago. “about to break apart”—title is from a line from a poem (see below), These Photos Now by Cynthia Nibbelink Worley. Medium: Digital Montage—Archival Pigment Print; Size: 18 x 27 inches. 2015. (gif animation indicates the Photoshop® layers used to comprise the image)
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These Photos Now by Cynthia Nibbelink Worley

Looking at the photos now
They tell a different story –
The small frame house stands cold, alone
Its sagging porch, two elms I thought of once
as wondrous arms
seem weak – wasted limbs
about to break apart
My father’s work shed too, lonely – a patch
of winter’s snow
frozen on the roof
The barn, fat and warm inside I’m sure –
In these old sepia tones Phil sent upon Aunt Effie’s death, I
feel the great sadness, emptiness –
everything simple, flat, so plain
Without these pictures I idealize –
Fresh bread baking in my mother’s heavenly kitchen
The homemade Christmas tree glowing through a tiny window
Heat from a wood—burning stove –
The photos quiver with a certain reality
Wind howling through a hollow core
the heartache, precious pain
of that barren landscape
How hard we worked to make it seem more
than what it was

Cynthia (Cindy) Nibbelink Worley was born in northwestern, Iowa and is a graduate of Dordt College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Nibbelink Worley has authored two collections, Gypsies, Animals, and Wild Wild Roses. She has made New York City home for over thirty years.