TOTEM TOM TOM

 

                     TOTEM TOM TOM, 11 x 8 inch ink drawing by George C. Clark   AVAILABLE

When I visit museums of art or natural history or folklore or toys, sometimes I like to sketch dimensional folk personages, be they puppets, marionettes, dolls, masks, or in this case Clayoquot house posts from the Pacific Northwest. When I drew these before the COVID pandemic in a natural history museum, there were only dark museum walls behind them which I didn't draw. Yesterday I was in a Forest Preserve and I found a stand of living and fallen trees, leafless and silhouetted against a bright sky. I decided to draw them. When I was paging through my sketchbook to find a blank page I came across my totem drawing and realized the winter woods would be a perfect background for it so I drew them in.