Three days ago I was wondering what on earth I was going to show this coming Sunday. Now I think I’m in pretty good shape. If I can crank out the color on one more totem piece and do two more iconic pieces, I will have 11 or 12 pieces. I am supposed to split the wall with a woman that I went to under graduate school with as well, so 12 pieces seems like it will be plenty. I was really pleased to come up with the group of six iconic pieces. A former teacher who always speaks to me about my work keeps telling me that it, my work, is all about the characters. Today I asked my friend Sam about the falling mouse character and he started to tell me what he thinks it is all about. I am not sure that either of these individuals is completely correct, but it does seem fair enough that there is something to the statement that everything that is in me goes into the production of those characters. So in essence, what I’m getting at here is that the iconic pieces with the characters is almost like a holy pilgrimage for me. Pardon me if you find that sacrilegious, I mean it more as a discovery of self which is always a guided journey.
Here is the most up to date collection of the totems.
I am very pleased with all of them. They completely tell a story of who I am, with some very careful nods to the northwest Indian culture whose totems I am most interested in. Read it from top to bottom. Let me know if you can figure out what they mean.
Here are the iconic pieces as well. You can fill in the blanks on these stories much like you can with an image of Christ or the Virgin Mary.
I am very impressed with how these pieces are coming out. They seem much stronger than I had originally anticipated them being. I think when I am through with these six I may try to do another series of them and focus on one character in particular.
That’s it for now.
Peace
-Mike