Here it is – a sample of the outcome of a fun project I have been dreaming up with my artist friend Tegwyn Deforest, since we collaborated on our Wild & Lost shoot last year. I wanted our children to visit Wonderland and have a Mad Tea Party with my favorite creatures and characters from this bizarre and cherished story. This of course demanded a lot of my costumer, and my own creative set design, but we rose to the challenge! We have so much fun cultivating imagination in our kids and ourselves. This particular literary moment is such a great thing to encapsulate a portion of childhood. The crazed Hatter and Hare are perpetually at tea-time, with clocks frozen and time still. There is no way to pause time and keep our children from growing up, but epic photos certainly help freeze their essence and savor it just a bit longer. Enjoy a trip down the rabbit hole with the maddest, zaniest, cutest, creature-children I’ve seen yet, featuring our very non-pro children (who I am immensely proud of) as Alice, Cheshire Cat, White Rabbit, March Hare & Mad Hatter. And, may you lose yourself on the border of imagination and complete madness.
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the cat: “we’re all mad here.”
– Lewis Carroll – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
emily rickard PHOTO 