Moon Creek

Water is one of four natural, spiritual elements to the Lakota Sioux that they use in many of their rituals, the other three being fire, rock and green (i.e. trees/vegetation). This painting also depicts the Moon. The cosmos is the natural and spiritual world beyond ‘Grandmother Earth’. I loosely based the work on a photograph by the pre-eminent photographer of the fading traditional Native American lifestyle, Edward Curtis (1868 -1952). As I was painting it, it seemed natural to place the arm of the Indian boatman in the water to show the unity of all things in a dramatic pictorial way.