Classical Greece

Greek pottery and sculpture was my initial inspiration for a series of drawings done some years ago. I was in Tampa, FL for an opening and decided to visit the Tampa Museum in some of my spare time. I hadn’t noticed until that trip the color relationships in the classical pottery of the Greeks: black figures on red clay, white figures on black, and black figures on natural (tan colored) pottery. You could actually call this a painting because I used a brush, not a pencil or pen.

I started off working with images of (contemporary) construction workers in drawings that looked like Greek pottery. Then I worked on a few related to the slave experience. I didn’t do that many drawings but, I like them in some ways.

I actually used the oxide colored mud I had collected in Minnesota on my very first trip there for the background. I love the red-oxide color and have used it for several projects. I still have a bucket full of it.