Essay / Avant-Garde

Cactus Forest

red stage coach leaving cactus forest The stagecoach, horse, and cacti are all drawn in red, with sharp angles and spiky corners everywhere. I can testify that Freddy Age Seven learned some of this technique from books by Ed Emberley, who can teach anybody to draw simple symbolic forms. The spokes are sharp, the cactus needles (OF COURSE!) are sharp, the legs and face of the horse are sharp. The viewer’s tired eye seeks in vain for a smooth surface to rest on, and finds two: the undulating line of the rolling ground, and the wavy brim of the driver’s cowboy hat. But everything,without exception, is red like flame. You can take these cowboys out of the flaming forest of cacti, but you can’t take the nature of the flaming cacti out of the cowboy.

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