Dixie Parade Drawing

I often find material in old news photographs, material to draw in my daily sketchbook. Figures. Choreography of a moment in time. This foreground tableau reminded me of the ancient statue of Laocoon and his sons being strangled by serpents, but it also reminded me of newspaper photos of the scrum on a football field or a basketball court. The drama and struggle and intense emotions. Here those emotions are seen in the white faces: hatred, vengeance, arrogance, bigotry. A drawing can interpret the sharp reality of a news photo and focus on the set of the attackers teeth and their white hot glare, the heft of the truncheons, the flex of the legs in their jackboots and striped trousers. This is American fascism, an evil that has re-emerged all these years later with the encouragement of the White House, which is something we've not seen before. The background figures, the women, are from a different photograph of a patriotic parade, beating a drum, smiling, laughing, celebrating. The foreground male, the background chorus female, all white except for the single, terrified but dignified, middle aged black figure on whose unwhite body all their hatred and violence and fanlike enthusiasm is directed. This is one of the reasons artists create art, in this case reinterpreting the courageous work of a news photographer who stood within striking distance of the violence.

Drawing:Ballpoint Pen on Paper

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:10 W x 10 H x 1 D in

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