Young Doe Old Crow: January 2011

January 28, 2011

“The drawing I did first was of this elephant, this glorious elephant. And then I divided it in sort of Mondrian fashion into what I thought an elegant abstract composition of rectangles and in each rectangle I decided what to do. The idea of dividing it up into bits had to do with this parable about the blind men and the elephant------So I had this idea of having this elephant divided up into bits that wouldn’t identify as an elephant all by itself and have each one of those things framed individually and have a different species of bird inhabit that little frame and do its thing within it and it’s like it can’t see any of the other elements so it can’t put the whole picture together." -Walton Ford

That quote is from the pbs ART21 episode on Walton Ford, and unfortunately it's not a complete quote and doesn't capture the intricate concept of the painting in it's entirety. Each frame draws attention to a different part of the elephants body that represents a trait noticed by the blind man, i.e. one man states "Well I know what an elephant is he’s smooth and hard, kind of like polished wood", another grabs the leg and goes "no no no an elephant is like a tree trunk" and another sees the tail and states that "the elephant is like a paintbrush". Thus, each frame represents a different blind man's perspective on what an elephant is, and we are only able to focus on one frame at a time. Also, the species of bird is different in each frame, and represent the different blind men.