The Tower of the Elephant 5
- THE TOWER OF THE ELEPHANT 5 - A black ink and black color pencil drawing on an 11 x 14 size coquille board. It appears as Plate 5 in my art folio based on the story by Robert E. Howard, "THE TOWER OF THE ELEPHANT". The folio was published by Bortner & Kruse in 1977.
Go take a walk in the woods and you will see dirt, rocks, plants, trees, and perhaps a pond. When the first men on Earth began living on this planet in just their bare behinds, that is all there was, just nature in the raw! Think of the challenge they faced! Day by day, year by year, decade by decade, they figured out a way to use nature's materials, to "eat!" to make "clothes!" to make a "house!" a "light bulb!" a "car!" a "skyscraper!" a "computer!" a "spaceship!" and all the other incredible inventions that make our lives easier than it would otherwise be. We are the beneficiaries of all that good stuff but nobody today ever thinks to thank them.
Today, nature is no longer the challenge for a person, society is. Think of how many years it takes you just to become educated enough to enter a trade or profession by which you can earn enough money to live comfortably in our society! You have to spend at least the first quarter of your life getting there!
For an artist it is tougher than you can imagine, few have the stamina, the perseverance to see it through. Mostly, an artist is alone, depending on his talent and determination to meet the challenge of earning a living. A lifetime of effort may go by without his ever achieving the reward of success. I read, recently, that only one in four would-be artists manages to earn a living with his artistry, the other 75% have to seek employment doing something else.
In the end an artist who makes it through life doing his "thing" should be satisfied that his lifetime of work was done honestly, with conviction and without self delusion. He should know that his artwork will eventually cast its own shadow on the field and seek it's own level of merit among the other created works of mankind.
"When all else fades away in time, what will remain of mankind will be his art". - Quotation found on a calendar page, beneath a mouth-painting by a handicapped artist.
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