Ebony & Ivory...

...live together in perfect pine-scented harmony. This lyrical sculpture was found in a wide field between two homes.

The oversized keys are made of wood, but the cast-iron frames and taut metal strings are authentic.

Behning & Sons, established in New York City in 1861, was known for building high quality, expensive pianos. Their success was dampered by the Great Depression - a sad coda, for sure - and the firm was sold to Kohler & Campbell, who continued producing pianos under the Behning name into the 1950s.

I often wonder about the oddities I find here in the Catskills. So many of them are objects that have found a second, sometimes altered, life. Who was the artist that constructed this....was he or she a musician? What happened to the original piano? And who was its first owner? All sorts of scenarios pop into my head over the provenance of such an item, which strikes a decidedly odd and mysterious chord in my imagination.