American Visions
Click on the titles below to view the drawing in a separate window while reading my thoughts and comments about it.
This is a retelling of the incident by which Datura stramonium got its common name, Jimsonweed: A colonial regiment was sent to Jamestown, Virginia in 1676 to bring order to Jamestown Fort which was besieged by an uprising under Nathaniel Bacon: Bacon’s Rebellion. Reportedly, on the way to Jamestown, the soldiers accidentally ate some young shoots of Datura stramonium in the edible plants they had gathered. They soon succumbed to the effects of the psychedelic plant and were unable to proceed for several days. The plant then came to be called Jamestown Weed which was later corrupted into Jimsonweed. Each of the soldiers is shown in period garb and experiencing individual versions of their visions accompanied by different spirit animals. In the background is Jamestown Fort burning.
George Washington sits on a log divining over a headless owl on a tree stump. The original reference for the owl was a Stolas demon who appears to people in order to teach them about the power of herbal healing. Here it is a mirror of the “decapitated” tree. The image updates the “cherry tree” morality tale of GW’s youth and brings the same questions regarding ownership of the impulse to destroy into GW’s adult life. The tree in this case, however, also has agency. The pentagram above GW is a curse the tree is putting on GW: if he is going to destroy that which gives shade, he will have to be responsible for that shade. Shade I both the literal darkness cast by opaque objects as well as the “shadows of the dead”. The text ‘swoosh’ is a description of GW’s vision of death and resurrection his response to the curse. Hidden in the weeds is a rattlesnake, a symbol of the young America’s fierce independence. An animal that does not attack unprovoked but once engaged never surrenders.
Thomas Jefferson standing by a woodpile behind his retirement home at Poplar Forest smoking a pipe packed with the “Smoker’s Blend” herbs growing behind him while contemplating his own death. A small group of Wild Turkeys fly overhead crossing the track of his ascending soul to the “Happy Place” described in the Egyptian Book of The Dead as well as AA programs. The ‘sunrise’ text at the end of this track are excerpts from the Declaration of Independence removed from their context to give a more open–ended, spiritual meaning: as is the rights of the people were derived from the powers of the earth. The title is what I image TJ might have said at his retirement party after a life spent forming a new nation’s government and then becoming old an curmudgeony, having to turn it over to a younger generation, clinking glasses and a hushed room: I just want to say Thank You for this lovely evening and, in parting, Good Luck Assholes!
This drawing shows Benjamin Franklin on a vision quest, sitting on a hilltop, surrounded by herbs, orchids, bats, and his spirit animal the wild turkey. What he has come to realize, though, is that world is not of divine origin but that the devil himself created the world, accounting for the suffering, chaos, and death that exists that seem counter to a God-created world. BF also contemplates that the crumbling world, its inevitable destruction might be a means for the devil to erase his sin and get into the good graces of God. The composition is modeled after Goya’s “Sleep Of Reason”. “Wind”, “Smoke” and “Infinite Emptiness” are the offerings as to what might be the breath of Satan.
Here we see a middle-aged George Washington sitting (Indian-style, haha) in a garden of tree stumps, Nightshades (Henbane, Mandrake, and Tobacco), Foxglove, and Burdock. Poisons and tonics, they serve as Washington’s ‘Philosopher’s Garden’ as he sits in contemplation in this rendition of the Prayer at Valley Forge. He is holding the top stem of a Foxglove which he broke off of the plant to the right of him, Foxglove is the source of the heart medicine Digitalis and he clutches the plant to strengthen his heart as he seeks guidance in prayer. His prayer was indeed answered in a way. However, instead of the Christian God what has manifested is an older, more elemental deity seen here atop The Tree of the Evil Eagle. This is the common name for species of Brugmansia. The tree, also a nightshade, is associated with a malevolent spirit personified as an eagle. It is said that this eagle will steal the soul of a person who falls asleep under the tree or who has a weak attachment to his soul. The eagle therefore is also a conductor who travels between dimensions, between the living and the dead - a spirit of death, cemeteries, and war. This drawing elaborates on Washington’s connection to trees and shows him as an unwitting “tree shaman” - the cherry tree tale, forever cursing him to walk with the shade of the tree he cut down.
“Fuck It” shows our second president John Adams smoking the weeds which grow around the stump where he sits as he contemplates his life of suffering and endurance. His head gently floats off of his shoulders as he passes into the ultimate visionary state, death. The building in the background is his home and farm known as Peacefield. And in his own words he proclaims the battle cry of the weed: While conscience claps, let the world hiss.