At Journey's End by Chrystyne Novack Art and Photography

About "At Journey's End"

by Chrystyne Novack Art and Photography

About the artwork

I received many insights and good suggestions when I asked for help on a title. Originally, I had wanted something mystical and magical - an actual place name that had a strong connection to myth was what I was originally looking for. A few pointed out it was a table/picnic table. Yes, it could be looked at as just what it is. After all, a table is just an everyday common object, is it not?

But I still wanted to bring magic to it with a befitting title. The more suggestions that came in, the more 'food for thought' I saw how a table plays a supporting role in everyday life...and myth and history. A friend on FB sent me a poem titled "Perhaps This is Where the World Ends by Joy Harjo". Joy's poem opens with the second line "The world begins at a kitchen table." The table becomes the cornerstone where people/family gather to partake in the 'gifts of the earth'. It is where we eat together, tell stories together, where discussions are waged & raged, 'wars begin and end at the table'. Joy ("a house in the sun") or sorrow ("umbrella in the rain") are both servings that can be found passed around when we sit and gather at the table.

When you stop to think about it, there have been many tables throughout the ages in which people gather for a purpose. Be it back to the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, to Jesus gathering with his disciples at the Table of the Last Supper, to the Table Esoteric of the Druids, to the old oak table on which the Declaration of Independence was signed, or even the assemblies gathered at the Cabinet Table in Downing Street. It even weaves itself into common vernacular. In today's Parlimentary procedure, 'a motion to table' means the to lay the topic on the table or to move for postponement of consideration. In American dialect "to table the discussion' is to put aside the topic and leave it. Even the idiom of "bring something to the table" is a phrase used when bringing something to benefit a group. It is the setting where one can 'turn the tables' on an opponent in a game of strategy or game for fun. In every household, the table is where the family can or has gathered to eat and