Fictional Literary Characters
For awhile my painting was represented by a gallery on historic Canyon Road. For any artist living in Santa Fe, this is a very big deal, and it certainly was for me. Because my retablos and paintings of birds of prey sold fairly well, I was encouraged and inspired, beginning to think of a new direction I could go in. I came up with the idea of illustrating some of the most interesting characters in classic literature and set to work. When I had about a half dozen paintings completed, the gallery went out of business…
If you've read the book, 'Beloved' by Toni Morrison, you will recognize some of the things I've referenced in this painting: her birth in water; her mother's home; the men that hunted escaped slaves; the symbols (in quilt form) left to warn and guide slaves to safety; and those stairs that lead up to the bedroom. The character of 'Beloved', as I've portrayed her, is an incarnation and embodiment of all that her mother, Sethe, endured as a slave, as well as the presence of a murderous act that she can't live with, or without.
From 'Beloved' by Toni Morrison
When the click came Sethe didn’t know what it was. Afterward it was clear as daylight that the click came at the very beginning – a beat, almost, before it started; before she heard three notes; before the melody was even clear. Leaning forward a little, Beloved was humming softly.
Width: 11 inches
Height: 14 inches
ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHTED.
Ahab in the Eye of the Whale Moby Dick
In this original painting I've imagined that Ahab's hatred of the white whale was so great that not even death could overcome it. 'Sometimes I think there's naught beyond.' I've made it so, leaving Ahab to rant, rail, and curse his nemesis forever, always unable to defeat it.
From Moby Dick by Herman Melville
“All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks . . . If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ‘tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk to me not of blasphemy, man; I’d smite the sun if it insulted me.”
Width: 14 inches
Height: 11 inches
Depth: 2 inches
ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHTED.
White Fang Portrait of the Wolf Archival Print
This is a print of a painting I did after re-reading 'White Fang' by Jack London. The story takes place in the Yukon and Northwest Territories of Canada in the 1890s. It tells of a wolf, taken while still with his mother, by a indigenous trapper, Grey Beaver. Quote from 'White Fang' by Jack London:
'Hated by his kind and by mankind, indomitable, perpetually warred upon and himself waging perpetual war, his development was rapid and one-sided. This was no soil for kindness and affection to blossom in. Of such things he had not the faintest glimmering. The code he learned was to obey the strong and oppress the weak. Grey Beaver was a God, and strong. Therefore White Fang obeyed him. But the dog younger or smaller than himself was weak, a thing to be destroyed.'
I've painted a shaman-like figure above the wolf, to represent the power men had over White Fang. And within the half circle above this figure are several of the wild animals that also inhabited the territories, predators and prey alike.
Width: 10 inches
Height: 10 inches
ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHTED.