West
Virginia
Folklore (1992)
Enameled
Copper; 4' 2" X 4' 6"
The images in this mural are drawn from children's rhymes, folk sayings, ghost
stories, and tales from Europe brought by Appalachia's waves of immigrants. My father illustrated his sister's
books; some of my images are an homage to his illustrations. The
rag doll leaning against the tombstone was his picture for a story
about a little ghost girl who frequents a one-room schoolhouse, saying she lost
her rag doll, until a new teacher is brave enough and thoughtful enough to make
a new doll and give it to the child, who then vanishes. The teacher later
learns that a child was murdered near there a generation before; on a walk in
the woods, she stumbles upon the very doll she made, leaning against an
overgrown headstone. On the right side of the mural, the skeleton hand comes
from my father's illustration to "The Telltale Lilac Bush," in which the
branches of a lilac bush beat against a window when there is no breeze. Upon
digging it up, neighbors find the skeleton of the householder's wife, who had
mysteriously disappeared some time before. Other images include a leprechaun and a wolf, references to Irish and European
tales; three geese, from a children's rhyme; willows that form a heart, from a
story of ill-fated lovers. The foliage was inspired by the flowering of West
Virginia forests in spring: wild roses, dogwood, rhododendrons, springing from
deep brown leaf carpets--tulip poplar, oak, and maple--of previous autumns. |
