Bearman Adrift, 22" x 28", conte on paper, 1982. Private collection.

Bret and I had agreed that we would not interact with each other during the photo shoots. As an actor, he was in character and completely improvising his performance. I was simply there to document his work for my own purposes of creating images after the photos were printed.

This composition came about when Bret sat down in a dilapidated car seat which had been discarded in a clearing in the woods. This seemed to heighten the "of nature"/"foreign to nature" intrigue of The Bearman idea. The ear flap of the bear hat is covering his eye from the viewer's vantage, yet his "hidden" line of sight is exactly parallel to the horizon line of his environment. The dilapidated car seat symbolizes a modern human contrivance (a vehicle) which has been dismembered and has degenerated beyond use. Yet this symbolic seat is the exact position from which The Bearman is seated while "traveling" through his contemplation of the dynamism of his existence as both a creature of nature and as a human entity.