'Pondering' Painting

In Utah, July 24th is a holiday where we celebrate when the first settlers came into the Salt Lake Valley. Recently I entered an art show with the theme of 'Celebrating our Heritage'.

About a month or so ago I helped my friend clean out his mother's garage and we found some newspapers from 1946. No one wanted them so I nabbed them thinking they might make a fun element in a piece of art.

So I collaged the front page and some of the pages from one of the editions of the Deseret News onto canvas. With the art show theme in mind, I chose July 20th as it was the nearest date to our pioneer holiday. Then I painted some people looking up as if they are reading the paper and thinking about what was in it and how it affects us today. Although the newspaper was quite yellowed, I antiqued the edges to tie it all together. I took this picture of the painting at the reception, so it's not the best but at least you can see what it's like.