There is a woman of indeterminate age, a wise woman of uncertain race or region. She tells me a story. She is my grandmother, my mother, my aunt. She is a stranger.
I hear it as I drift off to sleep and it paints the inscape of my dreams with marvels and wonders. I hear it in a kitchen, by the hearth of a house in a city I never expected to visit. It is told in a language I cannot speak but that I can immediately understand. I receive it as a welcoming gift from strangers in a distant land of intense light and heat, a land that I come to as a stranger and leave as a friend.
The story is itself so strange that I am almost fearfully transfixed, the story is so familiar that I almost shout out in recognition.
I take this story away with me and through the metamorphosis of color, line and shape, give it away again, as was expected and understood, again and again, this strangely familiar story, to unknown others, and to you who will perhaps, be a stranger no longer.
The inspiration for my imagery comes out of the oral storytelling tradition of the family and religion that nurtured me and the varied cultures and traditions of the peoples and lands that I have had the opportunity to work with and live among.
The compositions are worked out initially on architectural tracing paper as the heavy vellum of the finished drawing does not lend itself well to erasure. The image is then transferred to a 4 ply or 5 ply vellum or plate surface. The color palette is determined and the hues built up very gradually. Layer over layer of Prismacolor pencil is then applied as well as the application of some graphite pencil. Many layers of different colors are mixed to create the final desired hue and the tooth of the paper must be close to completely filled so as to produce the desired intensity up to but not beyond the point where it refuses to accept yet another layer of color.
The completed drawing is often then embellished with small glass beads sewn through the paper and mounted onto black foam board.
© 2024 Barbara-Ann Carver-Hunt