The Suspension of Disbelief

The Suspension of Disbelief is one painting from a series called “The Bellows of the Bear” which draws on McRae Morton’s family history.  McRae Morton reconstructs and retells stories of her ancestors whose search for work or rest, adventure or belonging took them across oceans, over mountain passes, into the bellies of coal mines, and through the unknown wilds of the West.  McRae Morton intertwines the narrative of her lineage with passages from American art’s past to situate each character in a time and place that has been committed to history.  For The Suspension of Disbelief, McRae Morton cast the bear who is tethered to a boat in George Caleb Bingham’s “Fur Traders Descending the Missouri.”

The frame for this painting was hand made by a Lancaster County Cabinetmaker and crafted of walnut from a tree that fell on the property of McRae Morton’s father’s childhood home in West Virginia.