Artist: Elisabeth Ladwig
Title: The Weight of a Snowflake
Medium: Photo Collage on Watercolor Paper
Dimensions: 27"h x 18"w
Limited edition of 17; piece is unframed. Also available framed. Limited editions available in 3 other sizes.
Unlike most of my work, I knew in advance what this piece meant to me. I knew why I was creating it. Beautiful, powerful things can happen when we work together to achieve them. The following tale by Joseph Jaworski, of which there are many versions, is one that has inspired me time and time again: "Tell me the weight of a snowflake", said the robin to the dove. "Why, it weighs nothing more than nothing," replied the dove. "In that case," the robin began, "I must tell you a marvelous story. I was sitting on a branch of a fir tree when snow began to fall... not heavily, not in a raging blizzard - no, just like a dream, delicately and peacefully. I decided to count the snowflakes settling on the needles and twigs of my branch: 3,741,952. Then suddenly, as the next snowflake landed, weighing 'nothing more than nothing,' as you say, the branch broke off." With that, the robin flew away. The dove thought for a moment and said, "Perhaps we are just a snowflake away from achieving peace in the world."