The Fairy of Frost

The Fairy of Frost

The Fairy of Frost

On a chilly, damp night in Autumn, she slips in while the human world slumbers. Her breath touches blades of grass and window glass, dusting the Earth with crystalline sparkles. The Frost Fairy comes to signal the green world that it is time to sleep. The plants that have drawn their life into their roots welcome her; children gaze at the patterns she’s drawn on mailboxes and car windows and tell stories about the worlds they see.

Her brother, Jack, has always been credited with the magic and he does sometimes help, but the Frost Fairy taught him everything he knows. She showed him how to keep his chilling breath close to the ground and how to apply it to non-living objects like human cars and mailboxes. Once she’s cooled things down just right, she hovers above the surface of her chilled world and sings the water song. It’s the same joyous melody that calls streams to form from mountain snows and rain drops to leap from clouds but she whispers it very softly because the tiny molecules she calls now are very sensitive to loud sounds and she needs to have them follow her willingly.

As the molecules rush to the source of their favorite song, the frozen surfaces catch them. With a wave of her hand, Frost Fairy puts them to sleep, transforming them into sparkling crystals of ice. The sun will wake them, either in the morning or, at least, by the Spring and the molecules of water will form drops and sink into the soil. There they will nurture tiny sprouts joyously struggling to find their way to the returning sun.

The Frost Fairy, like all Fairies, knows intimately the cycles of life. Her breath may chill but within her wings are the green hints of spring. As you shiver into a warmer jacket and pull scarves and gloves from the back of the closet, thank the Frost Fairy for the beauty she brings to this darker, colder time, and remember that what freezes and sleeps now will feed the awakening dreams of Spring.
–Bridget Wolfe

The Fairy of Frost is one of the many mystical images created by artist John Curtis Crawford in his continuing quest to show us all that “The World is Alive.” Each print begins as a single photograph, taken in nature by the artist, then used as the palate for creating the print. Each asks the question: “What might I see if I were an Otherworld being whose eyes could assemble ‘reality’ in a more complex fashion?”  In the compositing process, John looks for the faces and energies that look back at him and call him deeper into the essential aspects of the subject. These creatures and energies become his muse and his guides and the process becomes one of discovery more than creation. Each print becomes a meeting of the minds of all that is alive but hidden within the scene originally captured by his camera’s lens.

See The Fairy of Frost and more of John’s incredible prints at fairywoodland.com