“Western Icons” 11 x 18” Watercolor on Paper

This painting is a colorful panoply of iconic forms from the old west.  Pattern and texture are combined as a collective recall and homage to the west.

Symbols call to me.  They have a root system in the past, yet reach out into the present, growing and changing with modern culture.  Symbols lend sense of belonging and order.  In America, we tend to still identify with where we came from…” My mother was English and my father was Irish” for example.  We like to look at the fractions: ” I am 1/2 German, 1/4 English, and “we think” 1/4 Irish”.  I guess to some extent that has shaped who we are if only in our minds.

In recent genealogy study, my husband has remarked on the irony that his ancestors came over from England only to find and kill his ancestors who were already living here!  Amazing that he even came to be!

I believe that we will eventually evolve into being “human beings”, residents of Earth,  and that would be a good thing.