this Page with a Friend
and you will understand as you experience the
entire series.
A close friend hovers over, giving advice and feedback, as friends often do. This symbolizes the
importance of good friends and the fact that they survive the deep connections of marriage. Sometimes,
the relationship with our best friends survives much longer than the relationship with those to whom we are
actually married.
The older woman kneeling represents the servitude of the older generation to the younger generation.
Other than the caregiving duty we feel as parents, why is that? Perhaps in a primeval urge to preserve and
propagate the species we do what we can to help along and ensure the new generation has it a little
easier than the previous generation.
Reflecting upon herself in the mirror, I’m sure the bride is checking her makeup, her veil, but perhaps she is
also checking to see if love is reflected in her eyes. Marriage is also a time of reflection, when we reflect
upon our lives up to that point and what we are bringing to the marriage. Are we a whole person, able to
contribute significantly to the marriage? Or are we looking to marriage to complete something lacking in
our lives? It is one of the major stages many of us will play out our lives upon, and as such, we so
desperately want it to be a critically-acclaimed performance on the Stage of Life.
entire series.
A close friend hovers over, giving advice and feedback, as friends often do. This symbolizes the
importance of good friends and the fact that they survive the deep connections of marriage. Sometimes,
the relationship with our best friends survives much longer than the relationship with those to whom we are
actually married.
The older woman kneeling represents the servitude of the older generation to the younger generation.
Other than the caregiving duty we feel as parents, why is that? Perhaps in a primeval urge to preserve and
propagate the species we do what we can to help along and ensure the new generation has it a little
easier than the previous generation.
Reflecting upon herself in the mirror, I’m sure the bride is checking her makeup, her veil, but perhaps she is
also checking to see if love is reflected in her eyes. Marriage is also a time of reflection, when we reflect
upon our lives up to that point and what we are bringing to the marriage. Are we a whole person, able to
contribute significantly to the marriage? Or are we looking to marriage to complete something lacking in
our lives? It is one of the major stages many of us will play out our lives upon, and as such, we so
desperately want it to be a critically-acclaimed performance on the Stage of Life.
Marriage is not a Stage of Life that everyone dances on.
Some never experience it, either by willful choice or by
unwilling misfortune. As I said before, not everybody gets
married, but if you don’t, you have friends or family that do.
It has been a major Stage of Life for millennia.
In this drawing, I tried to convey the anticipation instead of
the actual event. Oftentimes our emotions before the event
are more memorable than the event itself. Fear of the event
is often greater than the actual living through the event that we
fear; a test, a job interview, an operation. And so it is with
marriage. We dream of what it will be like long before we
meet the person we will be doing it with. We plan for months
for the event, stressing out over the tiniest details. And yes,
we agonize over whether we are making the right decision.
Is this really the one? And then the day finally arrives and
the stress and emotions magnify tenfold. All this for a 15
or 20 minute ceremony! It is for these reasons that I felt the
anticipation—or the pre-show if you will—was actually more
important to convey the Stage of marriage than the event itself.
The little girl, looking on with excitement and admiration, is the
same little girl that you saw in the 12 Stages of LifeTM, Stage 2,
"First Day of School". There is an important reason for this
Some never experience it, either by willful choice or by
unwilling misfortune. As I said before, not everybody gets
married, but if you don’t, you have friends or family that do.
It has been a major Stage of Life for millennia.
In this drawing, I tried to convey the anticipation instead of
the actual event. Oftentimes our emotions before the event
are more memorable than the event itself. Fear of the event
is often greater than the actual living through the event that we
fear; a test, a job interview, an operation. And so it is with
marriage. We dream of what it will be like long before we
meet the person we will be doing it with. We plan for months
for the event, stressing out over the tiniest details. And yes,
we agonize over whether we are making the right decision.
Is this really the one? And then the day finally arrives and
the stress and emotions magnify tenfold. All this for a 15
or 20 minute ceremony! It is for these reasons that I felt the
anticipation—or the pre-show if you will—was actually more
important to convey the Stage of marriage than the event itself.
The little girl, looking on with excitement and admiration, is the
same little girl that you saw in the 12 Stages of LifeTM, Stage 2,
"First Day of School". There is an important reason for this
| 5. Marriage A Personal Note from the Artist |
| Actual Image Size: 16”x 20” |
| Copyright Bruce Carnahan All Rights Reserved |
12 Stages of LifeTM
| 5. MARRIAGE |
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| * The Circular Copyright Mark you see overlapping each Picture only appears online for protection against electronic internet theft. The prints you purchase do not have any such mark. |