For three dollars our library — or rather Friends of the Library — sold me a book called Tapamweni. It is a book about rock art in the US Southwest, and has reproductions of very old petroglyphs. Some of them are perhaps 8,000 years old. I copied one of the humanoid figures that I found in the book, and then carved a stamp out of it. I’m using that stamp as a starting point, and then I add an orange ink wash and little black ink pen drawings.
I like to think I’m reaching out back in time, millenias back, and shake hands with that unknown artist who drew this thing the first time around. Thank you, unknown artist, your vision lives on.
(The drawings I add here also reference Joaquín Torres-García — so thank you to you as well, Mr. Torres-García!
Bibliography
- McCreery, Patricia et al. Tapamveni: The Rock Art Galleries of Petrified Forest and Beyond. Petrified Forest Museum Association 1994.
- Pérez-Oramas, Luis, Alexander Alberro, Sergio Chejfec, Estrella de Diego, and Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães. Joaquín Torres-García: The Arcadian Modern. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2015.