Audio guided tour of Story of the Prodigal Son

In the story of the prodigal son. Uh I'm, I'm going back over old work that I, that I did in many years in probably 1970 71. And uh the original one that I had done was a small painting. And then I developed that into an an

outline drawing. It was like a wood block print and it was black and white. And this particular piece is based on that but very loosely from those very early works, I developed it into a, a bigger taller image and with much more with much more uh

work put into it. And so this took many months to print it and to design it, I had the drawings, I did many drawings in order to be before I began. But once I began, everything was opened up for me, you know, I started to imagine

all kinds of elements that I could add that would make it more interesting and, and make beautiful lettering and also many patterns and beautiful um details like flowers and little symbols and little anecdotes to the story at on the top. If you look at the top

of each pillar, there are little anecdotes. But when you see the the the sun leaving, I put so many details of animals and you know the parents saying goodbye. And even uh there's a rooster crowing on the top and his all his family are there saying

so sad to see him go but excited. And then when he gets to the city, he is so excited. It's like a beautiful plaza filled with people doing all kinds of things. And there's a wonderful juggler there in the plaza with Children being entertained by him.

Then he looks in all the windows and there are all these people doing all kinds of things that he's never even thought of in his, from his little town. But then in the center, there is a panel where he is gambling. He's having such a good

time. He's playing cards and he seems to be lucid. So he's losing all his money. But it's a wonderful place. It's like a casino, a medieval casino because there's all these musicians playing and entertaining. It's a little baroque orchestra or not baroque but medieval orchestra. And

there's people all around pouring more drinks uh for him to get drunk. And then the night skies, it's I I made all the sky and all the horizon connect. So there's like a striations across each of the panels that connect to each other. And uh then

in the, the fourth scene he's there. And uh and fortunately at this time of the in 2004, I was able to draw pigs. And so I added pigs at the bottom. At when I first did the work, I, I couldn't draw pigs very well. So I

just said, oh, well, I won't put pigs this time, but it took me 34 years to get to the pigs. But then, uh but as you look, uh it's so much detail and the beautiful rows of wheat and trees and uh and then the the orchards

of trees II I made it, I tried to make it is inviting. So every time you look at it, you'd find more beauty, more intriguing things that would fascinate your eye. And then at the last scene, I have this uh giant rainbow when he returns home

and everyone's running to greet him and you see the brother hoeing or no plowing the brothers plowing the fields. And uh he's wondering what's going on. Everyone's so excited and here I'm working so hard and this guy wasted all his money, but I did feel a

little bit of empathy so that he wouldn't just be on the outside of the story. There's one of the panels, a little run little circle on one of the pillars. And the I show the father and the prodigal going to the older brother and trying to

help him. So he wouldn't be so angry. And then there's another panel with all of the people gathering together for a nice dinner. Well, I hope you'll enjoy it, but take time to look at this because it's uh full of interesting ideas of images and ideas

of how to tell a story.