The photographs were everywhere.
Spread across our dining room table, propped against bookshelves, laid out in neat rows on the floor, Ms. Wonder had transformed our home into a gallery of industrial maritime poetry.
And somehow, from this sea of images, we had to choose twenty-three.
"It's like Sophie's Choice," I said, immediately regretting the dramatic comparison.
"It's nothing like Sophie's Choice," Ms. Wonder corrected, though I detected a hint of shared anxiety in her voice. "It's more like... having to choose which of your children gets to go to the good school."
"That's not actually better," I pointed out.
She sighed and picked up a photograph of a cargo ship's stern, where rust and paint had created what looked like a Rothko painting. "I know. But how do I choose? Each one represents hours of waiting for the right light, the right tide, the right moment when the industrial becomes transcendent."
Princess Amy, who had been surprisingly quiet during breakfast, chose this moment to offer her perspective.
" What if you choose the wrong ones?" she asked, thinking she was being helpful. What if the photographs you leave out were actually the masterpieces, and the ones you select are just... adequate? What if you regret this decision for the rest of your life?
"Amy says hello," I told Ms. Wonder.
"Of course she does." Ms. Wonder set down the photograph and moved to the window, where morning light was doing interesting things to the sky. "Dr. Castellanos wants 'Fading Queen' as the centerpiece. That's non-negotiable. It's the first thing visitors will see when they enter the gallery."
"As it should be," I said. The massive photograph of the SS United States—the one she'd traveled to Mobile, Alabama, to capture—was undeniably the crown jewel of her "Hidden Canvases" series.
"So that's one down, only twenty-two to go," I said, but Wonder didn't look relieved.
For the next hour, she talked me through her favorites, and each photograph came with a story. The container ship she'd photographed at dawn in Charleston, where she'd waited three hours for the light to hit the hull at exactly the right angle. The oil tanker in Wilmington, whose weathered paint had created an accidental landscape. The freighter in Southport, where she'd discovered that rust could look like brushstrokes.
"Georgia O'Keeffe said that nobody sees a flower, really—it's so small, we haven't time," Ms. Wonder explained, holding up a close-up of a ship's hull that looked nothing like a ship and everything like abstract art. "She painted them large so people would be surprised into taking time to look. That's what I'm trying to do with these vessels. Make people actually see them."
"I want to take the viewers on a journey," she continued. "Start with 'Fading Queen,' that monumental first impression, and then move them through smaller studies that show the evolution of my vision."
"Like chapters in a book," I said, and I could see her mind already organizing the photographs into a narrative.
For the next forty-five minutes, she discussed aesthetic details, like grouping photographs by color palette, then by subject matter, creating visual conversations between images.
I watched Wonder's face as she talked, saw the moment when anxiety transformed into excitement. This wasn't just about selecting photographs anymore; it was about crafting an experience.
"I've made my decision," she said quietly.
"You have?"
"Well, not about everything, but I know the ones that matter. The ones that show what I'm really trying to say." She picked up a photograph I'd always loved—a close-up of a ship's hull where industrial patina had created something that looked like a seascape. "I want the theme to be transformation. About how time and elements can turn utility into beauty."
We worked through the afternoon and into the evening, Ms. Wonder selecting images while I offered occasional commentary. She chose photographs that showed her range—some massive and imposing, others intimate and delicate. Some from her early work, when she was still learning to see, and others from recent months, showing how far she'd come.
By dinner time, we had identified twenty-three photographs. "These are the ones," she said, and there was certainty in her voice now. "These tell the story I want to tell."
"They're perfect," I said. "Every single one."
The most experienced art-shipping company is in Charlotte," she said. We'll need to rent a van to get the photos there, but it'll be fine."
"Of course it will," I agreed, setting the Magic 8-Ball aside and making a mental note to consult it less frequently.
Five weeks to get twenty-three photographs boxed and delivered to the shipper, and then shipped from North Carolina to New York. Five weeks to ensure that Ms. Wonder's vision—captured in hundreds of hours of patient observation and refined through years of developing her artistic eye—arrived safely at Fort Schuyler.
To be continued next week in Post 3: "Shipping the Fleet."
