Wished to be the Moon by Smith Eliot

I first met Smith Eliot when I curated her work into Photo+Construct, a group exhibition of mixed-media and sculptural photography way back in 2007. Over the years I have admired her ability to tell a story with photographs and found materials. Her book-like constructions contain narratives that are deep, soulful, sensual, often focused on dark, melancholic and personal refections of life, death, and everything in between. Finally, I've decided to carry her work in inventory and I think you will find it as compelling as I do.   Smith tells us: Wished to be the Moon is a box about longing, and about the untraversable chasm between the present and the past. This work is from my Ghost Ships series. Legend has it, that the Octavius, a three-masted schooner, was found adrift by a whaling boat in October of 1775. A search party of five from the whaler climbed aboard the Octavius and discovered the entire crew of 28 fully dressed and frozen at the helm.  The captain was seated at his desk,