Big Wheel

Big Wheel

18.5" x 28.5"

The character portrayed in the medallion, (bottom center), I took to represent a CEO, Industrialist, Dictator or other form of Leader. The arms flailing, human pyramid I thought referenced our labor rising from gears at its base turning 'round a desolate landscape, a deserted street, a barred symbol. The bearded fellow with the biggest butt, Father Time and/or Wisdom was at the top of the heap but looked ineffective in that course of progress dominated by the pinheaded dude, the big wheel. Having said that, I'll add that I wasn't mad. The interlocking ribbons of the border offered beautiful curves to harmonize the theme somewhere between beauty and meaning. This painting received Honorable Mention in The Fourteenth Tennessee All-State Artists Exhibition in 1974 in The Parthenon Galleries in Nashville. It had also been shown in our first exhibition in Memphis in 1974 at Bruce's Gallery. The artistic director of the gallery, Robert Sanderson, was an affable, hard-working, man who helped launch us handsomely into the professional arena. Through his introduction we met Virginia Bruce who commissioned us to create a portrait of her using our narrative icons to represent her with biographical references, including her proud reign as Cotton Queen. In that portrait Jorge devised the stylized cotton flower that has been a recurrent motif in his drawings ever since. It was curious to me when I met Mr. Sanderson to find that he looked a lot like Big Wheel.