Once We Were Many
Perched atop the hillside along the Colorado/Wyoming border, a metal buffalo sculpture watches over the land below. In the fall of 2023, I went on a few day trips through this area and was captivated by the presence of the sculpture. My thoughts often drifted to a time when buffalo reigned over the land. It is the inspiration for this painting. The buffalo stands proudly among the sweeping western plains. Akin to figures in a carnival shooting gallery, the composition serves as a metaphor for the buffalo’s historic struggle on the brink of extinction during the 19th Century. Their story is a heartbreaking and haunting narrative of greed, habitat loss, and unrelenting predation. Woven into the very fabric of their resilience, the profound impact these majestic creatures have had on Indigenous communities and the environment cannot be underestimated. “All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it.”- Chief Seattle
36×24, oil. 2024.
Perched atop the hillside along the Colorado/Wyoming border, a metal buffalo sculpture watches over the land below. In the fall of 2023, I went on a few day trips through this area and was captivated by the presence of the sculpture. My thoughts often drifted to a time when buffalo reigned over the land. It is the inspiration for this painting. The buffalo stands proudly among the sweeping western plains. Akin to figures in a carnival shooting gallery, the composition serves as a metaphor for the buffalo’s historic struggle on the brink of extinction during the 19th Century. Their story is a heartbreaking and haunting narrative of greed, habitat loss, and unrelenting predation. Woven into the very fabric of their resilience, the profound impact these majestic creatures have had on Indigenous communities and the environment cannot be underestimated. “All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it.”- Chief Seattle
36×24, oil. 2024.
Perched atop the hillside along the Colorado/Wyoming border, a metal buffalo sculpture watches over the land below. In the fall of 2023, I went on a few day trips through this area and was captivated by the presence of the sculpture. My thoughts often drifted to a time when buffalo reigned over the land. It is the inspiration for this painting. The buffalo stands proudly among the sweeping western plains. Akin to figures in a carnival shooting gallery, the composition serves as a metaphor for the buffalo’s historic struggle on the brink of extinction during the 19th Century. Their story is a heartbreaking and haunting narrative of greed, habitat loss, and unrelenting predation. Woven into the very fabric of their resilience, the profound impact these majestic creatures have had on Indigenous communities and the environment cannot be underestimated. “All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it.”- Chief Seattle
36×24, oil. 2024.