Today I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time fighting to update my Writing webpage, having decided to include pictures of the book covers. That was the first mistake because I wound up spending hours “fixing” the image of a Mississippian Eagle Warrior on the cover of my first book REMEMBER NATIVE AMERICA—a curious experience re-doing digitally what I’d drawn first in pencil I believe in 1988. Talk about ancient history… It really is a remarkable image of a repoussé copper plaque found in a mound at Etowah in Georgia.

I got the idea to do this update to my webpage because I happened to think about the beautiful drawing I did in maybe 2001 for the cover of the book “Gymnopedie,” publication of which I cancelled and then revised as BAT IN A WHIRLWIND.

The Etowah Eagle Warrior my book designer converted to digital and produced in a copper stamp. The drawing for the other book, also done in pencil, was scanned to digital by myself, and then worked over by me again in my Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). (That work was what set me on the road to drawing the icons for my YE GODS! show, as well as all the photo restoration for the biography MS. YVONNE, The Secret Life of My Mother.) The Gymnopedie cover is an illustration of exactly what that Greek word means: a dance by naked boys.

Forgive me for feeling sinfully proud of this illustration based on ancient Greek vase-painting. While some of my Aztec icons are outrageous masterpieces, I consider this classical vision right up there with my best work. The motion of their dance is palpable. At least in my opinion…

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