Book is from the 2009 Art Exhibit. Signed and numbered copy (#95 of 108) with 10”x 10” signed Buji Bird art print.  Items are in new condition (book has some light shelf wear on dust cover (pictured). Original list price of the book was $295 and the Buji Bird print now sells for $950 in a 14” x 14” size.

" I believe that when I am creating I have entered a space I love beyond any I know.  I think and feel of it as a reverent place.  Miracles happen and magic flows."                    - Elliott McDowell 

Andrew Smith Gallery at 122 Grant St., Santa Fe, NM  87501 celebrates the Holiday Season in its new location next to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum with a book signing and exhibit for Elliott McDowell,  one of Santa Fe's most entertaining,  seasoned photographers.  Andrew Smith and bookstore owner Nicholas Potter first showed Elliott McDowell's photographs in the mid-1970s. This show marks the continuation of their thirty-five year relationship.  

Mr. McDowell will be at the gallery Saturday afternoon, December 12, 2009 from 2 to 5 p.m. to meet the public and sign copies of his new book,  Elliott McDowell: Mystical Dreamscapes.  The beautifully bound Special Edition book is limited to 108 signed copies and filled with full color reproductions.  Published in 2009 by Artbook Press, the book contains an essay by distinguished photography critic and author,  Eugenia Parry.  Originally priced $295.00, it comes with an original signed print of "Buji Bird."  The exhibit continues through January 18, 2010. 

In Mystical Dreamscapes McDowell delves into an imaginative world of wonderland gardens, golden suns, limpid pools, ancient trees, winding waterways, and stone paths that beckon the viewer to explore mysteries and magic.  The jewel colored photographs resemble miniature stage sets where scenes drift between waking and dreaming,  between familiar reality and the realm of fairy tales.  Recalling the magically charged atmosphere of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker,"  these photographs will appeal to people of all ages.

McDowell has spent decades collecting photographic images, first as color slides and later as digital imagery.  Traveling around the U.S., Europe and Asia he has collected thousands of  photographs of people, places and objects that have special meaning to him.  From his vast source material he constructs his composite images in Adobe Photoshop on the computer, much like a collage artist  who carefully layers and blends image fragments into compelling gestalt works.   Each minutely crafted photograph contains insights, wonders, and  riddles that nudge our perception out of its familiar ruts.

"Elliott's territory of thinking and feeling is fascination," writes Eugenia Parry.  "It is a new kind of geography, as concrete as any real experience."

Buji Bird art print - "Buji" is a Zen term that means living naturally,  or being in accord with the moment.  This quality of being is perfectly embodied by an alert young heron who strides confidently along an idyllic seashore.  Emotionally, the components of the scene --  bird, waves, sky and puffy clouds work together seamlessly.   McDowell photographed the bird and foreground waves on a Florida beach, but he culled the curling wave and billowing clouds from a fragment of wall art that he photographed and later manipulated in Photoshop.