I grew up in Louisiana,” Heide Presse says, “and over the years have taken many trips up and down the ‘River Road,’ exploring old plantations along the Mississippi. Dressed in Ribbons Fair was inspired by a stroll under a grove of centuries-old live oaks on one of those plantations. I love this piece because the atmosphere seems to border on fantasy, but everything in it is real or at least within reach of reality. In fact the plantation trees were actually larger than I’ve presented them here…but at the size and dimensions they are now, they offer just the right dreamlike quality.”