Prairie Fire drawing
Prairie Fire
Prairie…what do you think about when you hear that word? Most people think of vast, flat land that goes on forever. That prairie is probably a tall grass prairie on the Great Plains. You can read a little about the Tall Grass Prairie here, and there’s a really interesting article about preserving the Tall Grass Prairie by setting fires here. I recommend that one. Where I live here in Texas is the mid-grass prairie, although the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department calls it the Cross Timbers region.
Frankly, I never considered the prairie at all, and if I did consider it, probably thought it boring. That was before I actually studied it and came to appreciate it. Our prairie is not that vastly flat Great Plains. We have hills. Low hills, but hills. And this brings me to my real topic today.
A few months ago, I went to a lecture at the Kimbell Art Museum during the Picasso to Matisse exhibit. The lecture was really quite interesting, but as I was sitting there, I started thinking about possible weavings about the prairie. Before I left the lecture, I had thumbnails of many of my ideas and a list of more possibilities. Since that time, I have been trying to decide how to actually execute my ideas. My first attempt was not a total success, maybe not even a fractional success. The two drawings above show what I wanted to do in terms of depicting grasses. Yes, I know, it’s yellow. The rest of the story next time…