David Baldinger - Cartoonist & Photographer

  History of The Faire Godhogget The story of the Faire Godhogget goes all the way back to 1990 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in the early days of our family. Cyn and I were renting an apartment on West Newton St. in a house that was suddenly up for sale. The house was divided into two apartments. One on the second floor and ours on the first. The real estate company selling the building became very obnoxious about bringing prospective buyers into our apartment to see the property. We grew very tired of the rudeness and condescension on the part of the real estate agents. I’m sure they considered us “the poors” and not worthy of respect or courtesy. They believed that they could parade prospective buyers through our lives at any time of the day or night. Because of this, Cyn and I started looking for someplace else to live. In the paper, we read of a “rent to own” property, so we decided to have a look. The property was an old wood frame house on Euclid Ave. in Greensburg. It was in...

Born in the spring of 1861 in a modest East Anglian village on the wooded edges of Bury St. Edmunds, George David Darrow was the son of a gardener and a washerwoman. A solitary child, Darrow showed early signs of a vivid inner world, sketching woodland creatures and imagined spirits on sheets of whatever scrap paper he could find, much of which smelled of fish or meat that the paper had once wrapped. His youth was shaped by the rhythms of rural life and long hours exploring hedgerows, brooks, and ancient groves. Possessed of a quiet, observant nature and an innate gift for drawing, Darrow taught himself the principles of line and light by sketching the creatures and foliage around him. His Father, Henry Darrow, disapproved of his son’s obsession with woodlarking and hoped that his son would take up a respectable trade. As a young teenager, George was apprenticed to a local stone mason, but his tenure didn’t last the summer. George was found to be carving mysterious symbols into the lim...

    A lonely gate stands in an unmowed field atop a small knob of a hill; its fence had long ago fallen victim to the brambles. I discovered this gate one warm summer evening on my daily walk through the country. I became intrigued by the simple beauty of its rough-hewn character, probably carved by a farmer a hundred years ago. The wood slats that made up the gate had faint Celtic carvings running their entire length. The wood had aged to a dull grey and was splintering on the edges. The closed gate compels me to open it. There is a sense of longing that draws me closer, and I follow, even with this out-of-place gate that has neither a closed side nor an open side. It stands freely, alone between its posts. I must see if there is a path on the other side. There is always a path on the other side. The path might be well-worn, or it is overgrown. But there is a path… always. Someone or something to follow creates a trail. Follow it, I will. There is one thing that must be do...