This gallery talk discusses a painting inspired by the Leslie Marmon Silko story she described as “The Invention of White People” in her book Storyteller. The story is also in her novel Ceremony. I remember thinking after the first time I read the story how amazed I was at how frightening a story it was. I was moved to recreate the visceral feeling of fright and foreboding elicited by the story in paint and canvas.

There is a petroglyph park on the outskirts of Albuquerque where intrepid hikers can scamper up a hillside to see a petroglyph mural. I scampered up the hillside and was rewarded with the amazing vision of ancient art that evoked an “immediacy of the spirit of place.” The inspiration from that sense of an “immediacy of place” and the visceral evocation of foreboding were brought together in this painting I have titled “The Witches Conference.”

The painting does not cast blame. Rather, it empowers the native peoples of spirited landscapes the ability to imagine hopeful futures for coming generations.