Don Francisco, Hijo de la Revolucion (Don Francisco, Son of the Revolution) Print

As a young college student back in the 1970s, sweet fate intervened to send me an invitation that changed my life: to travel to a remote village in Mexico’s Sierra Tarahumara and illustrate the first textbook in the region’s indigenous language. Charmed by the culture and languages, by the landscape and people – and by a lovely village girl who would later become my wife – I was both culturally and spiritually transformed. And my two-week visit extended to three years, and then, essentially, to forever. The Sierra Tarahumara encompasses a vast area, perhaps 30,000 square miles, and is a continuation of the same mountain range as the US Rocky Mountains, and similarly, it boasts an enormous canyon, much like the Grand Canyon (but twice its size and depth), which you may know as the Copper Canyon. The Sierra has been home to the Tarahumara people for thousands of years, and to mestizos – mixed-race Mexicans, as well for the past 2-300 years. There is a special marriage of self-reliance and community sharing. Self-reliance, in that if you need firewood, you will find the tree, chop it down, cut it up, and lug it back home; if you have a field that needs plowing, you will do the plowing. But, also community, in that if you have more than you need, you will share, and most certainly you will not put on airs or boast that you have more. Over the years I have created dozens of artworks celebrating the people and culture of la Sierra; and the works in this series, entitled “Honoring Our Elders,” comprise large-scale painted portraits of estimable seniors – women and men in their 70s, 80s and 90s – whose lined faces speak to years of hardship and adversity, but whose tender gaze conveys the innate kindness of a people of great generosity and character. This particular portrait is of Don Francisco, a nonagenarian (90 years old +) from a tiny community near my wife’s hometown of Bocoyna, Chihuahua, Mexico. NOTE: Technically, this is an acrylic painting on paper. However, I greatly water down the pigment – to an almost watercolor consistency - which allows me to build multiple layers of translucency, mirroring the almost geological contours and depths of my subjects’ faces. The surface on which I work is polypropylene, a smooth, flexible sheet of tear-resistant, scratch-resistant paper. Developed for printing durable graphics for display in banner stands or lightboxes, it is one of the most environmentally neutral plastics – and an absolutely fabulous, sensual surface on which to paint with bamboo brush! This piece will come to you rolled in a large tube. When I work, I pin my rough-cut sheets to my studio wall; therefore, you will find small pinholes in the corners. While I consider these pinholes part of the history of the piece, I recognize that some collectors may prefer to mat the work to cover the holes and non-rectangular edges; this is fine with me. I sign my work in pencil on the reverse. Any other questions, please ask! Thank you very much.