On A Roll

This is "Leave Only Footprints".  It measures approximately 36" x 60" and is my commentary on the Deepwater Horizon disaster in our precious Gulf of Mexico.  The piece actually began about a year ago, as an experiment of deconstructed screenprinting on cotton canvas.  I had loved the screening, but when I washed out the canvas, only faint reminders of the lovely screen remained.  Bummer!  I folded it up and put it away.  Then I dragged it out several months ago and for some reason scrunched it up and stuck it in the light blue dye bath.  It came out reminding me of light streaming through ripply water.  I didn't think much of it and decided to use the fabric as a trial for the screens I was preparing for "The Key to Centering", which I showed you yesterday.  So, there are a couple of motifs from that piece on this one.  At the same time, I was toying with doing a waterfowl piece and wanted to play around with some freezer paper stencils and thermofax screens of herons and pelicans.  When I added them in black, I realized that my subconscious was working out my anger over BP's huge disaster.  While we were hiking in North Carolina this past Spring, I photographed some bootprints in dried mud.  Adding those in blood red only seemed natural.  The top and bottom of this piece are the selvedge edges of the canvas, and the sides are just frayed from where it was torn and then washed about a half dozen times.  There are many layers to this piece: about ten, culminating in the gold leaf in the center and the gritty sand (which you probably cannot detect) on the two herons.
Here are a few more shots:

PEACE