"Emma's Field"
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"Emma's Field" 30"X20" pen and ink by Christopher Parent ©1998
This is a larger pen and ink drawing of my daughter Emma. It measures 30"X20" and took many, many countless hours to complete. I used three different photos of Emma to complete this drawing. Originally she was wearing roller skates and leaning up against a car in the driveway so I created a fictional world for her to be in by adding the landscape around her. This pose really seems to capture her spirited personality.
"The Return of the Ghost Dancers"
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"The Return of the Ghost Dancers" is an 18"X24" drawing by Christopher Parent ©1999
Late in the 19th Century the life that was known to the Native Americans was falling away like the autumn leaves in a bitter, cold wind. Disease, starvation and a holocaust driven attitude by the European settlers was ending the culture of the Plains Indians. In desperation they turned to their faith and looked to the Great Spirit for strength and vision. From that vision came the last hope for those who wanted to live their lives as their ancestors had. To turn that hope into reality the Ghost Dance was born. All across the Great American Plains the dance was celebrated to give strength, courage and protection from the soldier bullets and bayonet's to the Lakota, Cheyenne and all the other great tribes of the American Plains. It was believed that this dance would bring back those who had died at the hands of the whites while the European settlers themselves would perish when the land was cleansed and the old ways of the people returned. The faith in this hope was so strong that warriors would walk calmly into battle feeling they were protected from all harm only to be gunned down in a final stand at a place called Wounded Knee.
So how does an artist create an image that relates his or her personal feelings to this history? I thought of this as I worked on this piece. Often my drawings evolve into something different than what they begin as. This drawing is a example of how this can happen. As I was reading about the Ghost Dance I stumbled across a story of the courtship of the Cheyenne's. At dusk the man would wrap himself in a white sheet or blanket and wait among the trees close to the lodge of the woman he wished to court, they would meet and he would wrap her in his blanket if she wished. In my drawing the woman is freeing herself from the picture as the man she loves waits outside. The promise of the Ghost Dance is fulfilled and the lovers are soon to be reunited.
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Detail of "Return of the Ghost Dancers"