Peteroglyphs

Over the years I’ve enjoyed creating sculpture, watercolor paintings and, most especially, photographs. Since my wife Sharon and I have been visiting the American Southwest where I grew up, I’ve developed a passion for re-creating the rock art that we’ve seen. This was for my own amusement and display. That’s why I create Peteroglyphs…to honor those ancient and original artists. If you believe that art is communication, then you will understand that, while spending time recreating their art, I’m also able to come to know them just a little bit better. Once you do, you realize that they were just a talented and clever as we are; they were simply living in an earlier time with different resources and technologies.

The process

Rock art is never displayed on a flat surface so I chose rough canvas as the surface for my rock art re-creations. The wrinkles and folds create shadow and light very much like a real rock surface. Once each canvas is cut it is treated to fray the edges. Ancient Puebloans and other native groups produced rough cotton cloth which can be found on display in museums including The Edge of the Cedars Museum. These examples are often frayed from use and the passage of centuries. My choice of frayed, rough cotton cloth is pays homage to those ancient weavers. Once my canvas is ready, it is time to paint the backgrounds. Since this is a wet, messy process, I generally create them in batches. Working with the canvas wet, acrylic paint is applied in diluted washes. During the drying process, the pigment migrates through the canvas adding an organic look that can’t be achieved by hand. It is always exciting to pick through the backgrounds after drying to see what they’ve morphed into.

Next, a figure or scene is chosen for each canvas background. Sometimes the background seems to suggest what it wants painted on it. Other times I’ll browse through my collection of photographs for inspiration. For commission work, the background is created specifically for that scene.

Once the choice is made, the canvas is lightly remoistened and the scene is painted on. For a pictograph, the canvas is moistened enough so that the paint can bleed into the canvas just as paint might get absorbed into porous sandstone. When recreating a petroglyph, the paint is stippled onto a drier surface to replicate the figures chipped into the surface of the dark rock surface known as “desert varnish”. To be honest, this is the part of the process that I love the most. The focus is on applying paint. It is in these quiet moments of concentration that I sometimes feel that am making a connection with the original artist who spent many hours and days creating the image. This is the connection I hope that those who view my re-creations will feel as well.

Once the painting is complete, it is time for the mounting. To compliment the painting I hang them from willow twigs with wire. The use of shaved willow for mounting is a nod to the ancient’s use of willow in their daily lives. The wood is flexible when fresh and can be fashioned into many useful shapes. The bark can be striped off and woven. Willow wood was the choice for constructing the looms they used to manufacture cotton fabric.

The wire is formed in a spiral. Spirals are commonly found in rock art worldwide. There are many theories regarding what they represent. In the context of my creations, they represent time in an ever expanding spiral. Through alternative avenues of communication like art, we can know people of the past by leaping from ring to ring across the spiral of time.

Contact me at pbowden2@nycap.rr.com if you are interested in anything available below about or commissioning a depiction of your favorite rock art.