This Land is Your Land

This Land is Your Land 20×24″ oil on panel, framed by the artist

Everywhere I go, I am looking for inspiration. A few weeks back, we were able to stay in a home on a creek in the Great Smoky Mountains. The painting depicts a native American member of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation, in western North Carolina. We had a chance to visit the Oconaluftee Indian Village, where the 18th-century Cherokee lifestyle is preserved via live tool and craft demonstrations and authentic buildings. This gentleman was creating arrows for hunting the traditional way. And on the way back from Dry Falls, I captured this beautiful vista of the Smoky mountains at dusk, combining them to create this image of the craftsman, a reminder of who this land really belongs to. The light from the fire appears as war paint on his curious face. There is no judgment but there is a knowledge in his face that his people were on this land centuries before European colonists took it and made it their own land with their superior weaponry and patriotic songs