Farewell

and the

Golden Ring

Created by

Mr. and Mrs. Scott and Katlynn Thompson

One of a kind culmination of a 30 year dream

“Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder”

14 October 2015

We never really own anything. We are merely keepers in time. Farewell, the dark horse in all his splendor, is the keeper of the golden ring. This project rose from the decades long vision of Mrs. Thompson. The vision had been with her for many years with no means or time to see it come to life. Recently, the stars and planets aligned, the pieces came together and Farewell was born. With help from her husband, Mr. Thompson, her thoughts and dreams became reality.

This beautiful creation is the result of the concept known as Recycle, Re-purpose, Reuse. All of the major components came from your trash. Farewell was pulled out of a dumpster, thrown away after decades of use. He is unrecognizable now, but if you look closely and remember your early years, you will notice he is a “Wonder Horse”. Yes, the plastic horse of your childhood that was mounted to it's metal frame by heavy springs that you would bounce up and down and rock back and forth on for hours.

The lamp stand was taken from a recycle platform at one of the local transfer stations. All of it's parts had loosened, the light socket was broken and it leaned, wobbly, to the right. Rather than take an hour to make it nice again, someone set it out to go buy a new lamp. As you can see, there is nothing wrong with this beautiful floor lamp. All it took was a little time, effort and crreativity to bring it back to its former glory.

Notice the large older lamp shade. Several different shades were brought home to be looked at and worked with before this perfect shade for the project was found. It was dingy, with a bit of a crease in one area, but was otherwise intact. As you can see, no other type of shade would have been able to create the big top effect that this was designed for. The faces are merely memories of a time long since forgotten.

The shade is topped by a crystal decanter stopper from that by gone era. Someone had passed, so their belongings were tossed aside to forever adorn a landfill. What a fitting resurgence for this one time work of elegance and craftsmanship.

The barely noticeable and smallest of the major components is the Golden Ring. The small, thin and heavily worn wedding band is over 100 years old. This ring was passed on to Billy with a note in an envelope. It was was the wedding band of his great aunt, who at age 16 in 1898, became a mail order bride. Yes, this memory was also taken from a dumpster in it's storage envelope. What memories the ring must have. This ring has seen much. The turn of the century, the Guilded Age, the Great Depression, World Wars, man landing on the moon, and so many more moments in time that we have either forgotten or have just taken for granted.

The Carousel Horse is an elegant symbol of the time in which this ring thrived. Beauty and excess were the words of the day. Ornately decorated Carousels were the result of that feeling of excess and beauty. Finely crafted horses went round and round and up and down, carrying young and old alike away from themselves and transforming them into a world only attainable in their dreams. Remember, by grabbing the Golden Ring while rounding the carousel, you could ride again.

“Farewell and the Golden Ring” did ride again. The Golden Ring was grabbed. Their visions and memories are intact. If you look long enough you can see them in the distance, for Farewell is not only a memory, he is the guardian of all our memories gone. He lives on as long as we remember.