India

In the summer between my junior and senior year at college I had the easiest job I’ve ever had. I was the “Gallery Guard” at the Wriston Art Center at Lawrence University in Appleton, WI. My responsibilities included using a handheld clicker to count the number of visitors, and making sure that nobody touched any of the art. Sometimes I didn’t have to reach for the clicker all day. Honestly the toughest part of the job was not falling asleep, a requirement that was made even harder by the fact that I had carried over a very comfortable armchair from a nearby frat house to the art center for myself to sit on all day.

First I set about devouring Tom Robbins’ entire catalog. When that was done, I went for Herman Hesse. I made it through Steppenwolf, but Siddhartha had me falling asleep every few minutes, so I needed something else to do. I decided to grab a black Sharpie and start doodling on a blank canvas. At first the doodle was completely free-form. Though I was specifically trying to avoid creating a recognizable image, it didn’t take long for an image to form. At first it was just the mouth. The form of an elephant took root because the tongue started looking like a trunk. Eventually it ended up being a large black-and-white trippy doodle of an elephant being devoured by a mouth, and it stayed that way for around six months because I thought I was done with it.

Fast forward to my final semester in college. I’d taken forever to finish The Kiss, so I had very little time left to complete the last painting I was required to. Suddenly I remembered the elephant sitting against the wall in my dorm room. So I went to work using thin glazes of paint so I didn’t obscure too much of the detail I had put so much effort into. I named the painting “India” because everyone kept calling it Ganesha (it’s not, Ganesha is always represented with a broken tusk, my elephant has no such dental issues).