Saturday, December 10, 2016

Robertson clan helps me with "big picture"

On occasion, I have hinted at a "friendship" between the real Robertsons of West Monroe, LA and the fake Barefoots of Meadow, NC.  With the photo manipulation you are about to see, this relationship has been taken to a whole new level.

I have created a personal InDesign file which shows a "family reunion" which would have occurred after the return of Jesus Christ (but which I dated 2015, when this obviously did not happen).  Adobe allows me to publish it online, but my DSL connection, unfortunately, will not allow it.  So I have excerpted Buddy Wayne's welcome letter to the gathering, which is based on the biography of a real person named Miles Vinson Barefoot, who everyone called "Pink":

Other than God, family is the most important element of an individual’s life. Celebrating one’s ancestry can educate, motivate, and inspire current and future generations.
The Barefoot family motto is, “What was before, will one day be again.” In other words, no matter how much things change in the outside world, we have developed a system of core values that will always endure.
This event is the most tangible symbol of the love we have for one another. And there is no better place for it than on the land first settled by Miles Barefoot and his family, then passed down to his son “Pink” nearly 200 years ago. Over time, it became the place that he and so many others of his clan were buried.
Today, with Jesus Christ having returned to Earth and making all of us immortal celebrants of eternal life, Pink is back to welcome all of his descendants to his spot of destiny in Meadow township, North Carolina, U.S.A.
Enjoy all the days’ activities, and more importantly, enjoy each other’s company at this glorious reunion event!


I then published 10 sections of photographs and reports, representing each of the descent lines I imagined from them.  One of them is the John Noah clan, begotten from who would have been one of Pink's grandsons.  And along with that comes this photo, with captions for everyone pictured:



For this, I started by placing the Barefoots' heads on the Robertson's bodies - all 84 of them!  The original photo was taken in January 2014, at a get-together organized at the request of Mia Robertson, the daughter of Jase and Missy Robertson.  Then 11 years old, Mia was about to undergo her third surgery to correct the cleft lip and palate that she was born with.  The reunion, which included a special guest appearance by professional wrestler "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, was filmed for Duck Dynasty and shown on Mar. 26, 2014.  Ideally, my version would have had the Barefoots wearing more comfortable clothes for a summer day, but I found that to be too much work to try to match the entire body profiles.

In addition, four more people - including Brandy and her dad, Daniel - were dropped into the montage to allow them to pose together, and a few others were added to fill in blank spots.

Not only is this a large-scale view of the immediate and distant relatives that Buddy Wayne has, it's also - if inadvertent - a fitting tribute to the Robertsons, as Duck Dynasty is in its last season on A&E; the final show will air in January 2017.

No comments:

Post a Comment