Rattlesnake Flag: Shedding and Being Skinned

Rattlesnake Flag is painted in India Ink on Silk Organza. It measures 41" x 66" and floats freely, transparently. It has plenty of holes so that the breeze flows through.

The imagery in this piece relates to some works I made a few years ago, StoryHut, Walliecamp and artworks that sprang from those interrelated project “membranes.”

I spent my early childhood on a 40-acre ranch in the foothills of the California Coast Range known to my family and close friends simply as “The Land.” Rattlesnakes are plentiful in this chaparral biome, as are coyotes and field mice, if not gold nuggets. These species and this environment populate my subconscious and all the habits of mind and being that I formed early on. They are not mine alone, as they also live in American culture, and are mediated through that in my own imagination, and in yours.

We will hibernate in our burrows for longer than usual this spring. I feel like I am waking up over and over again, shedding and being skinned by turns. Circumstances are neutral, we get to choose what we invent from here. 

Detail. Rattlesnake Flag. 2020