South Dakota-Open

Craggy boulders in a Lewis, sheep fields and small, Gaelic-speaking fishing villages echo that I am Clan Morrison. Ancient, magical forest and epic, shallow rivers recognize that I am an artist. As an artist I have a affinity for open spaces or as the song says “don’t fence me in.” Of the entire empty places, South Dakota is one of the emptiest places in the US.  My brother thought one could draw South Dakota with a blank page, and when Hollywood needs a secret place, they turn to South Dakota. President TR went from being a rich New Yorker to a outdoors-man in South Dakota by work at a ranch where kept them from swearing. I am learning Gaelic.

South Dakota has a special mythology. The bird in the front is a ring-tailed partridge the state bird, but is also symbolic of the importance that South Dakota had in the Indian Wars with the place of Custer’s Last Stand where US Cavalry was out gunner and out manned by the Sioux Nation and was defeated. The flower is the state flower. The rock is the state gem. The water fall is for Sioux Falls which was mythical among the Native American and has the lowest unemployment outside of North Dakota. The waterfall itself is an attraction and is a national monument. The face is the face of President Theodore Roosevelt from Mount Rushmore. It was a New Deal era nation artwork part of the New Deal that was never completed and was suppose to go to chest high on all of the presidents.  It was his relative (third or fourth cousin) FDR who wanted his face on the monument but the artist who also never completed Stone Mountain question if TR would pass the test of time. (FDR out ranked him.) The other side of the face is Badland National Park which TR also liked. I drew this picture about a year ago with pencil and white charcoal.

I named this piece “Covered Bridge” and is ink and watercolor and 9”x12.”  One of the interesting element of watercolor is the green is not important. This picture combines the mythos of covered bridges and the green of nature.   I took the bridge from an unused one in Ohio near a metro-park. I you are interested in buying this painting or any other of my work please email me at MatthewMorrison76@yahoo.com.