While Issue 26 did not center around a specific subject, several themes emerged from the submissions. In this section, artists explore how values and beliefs arise, are expressed, and come to be re-examined through materials and cultures tied to the physical.
Cody Norton: Post Primary: After Hours, installation, 2021
Post Primary is a piece discussing the revisitation of past involvements in dove hunting while growing up in the South. While growing up in a small town in Central Texas, artist Cody Norton was raised in a family heavily involved in the sport of hunting. This piece is discussing the repetition that occurs when trying to perfect the sport of dove hunting. And trying over, and over again to blend in and fit into his family complex dynamics. It felt as if for years, he would never accomplish this feat, at the expense of another being’s life. Norton is dealing with the complicated relationship involved with this sport and trying to discover his belonging to his family.
Lauren Crawford: The Garden, oil on paper, 2020
Lauren Crawford: The Machine in the Garden, CMYK screen print, 2021
The Machine in the Garden series contemplates the reproduction and proliferation of ideas in the age of the machine. Leo Marx identified literary archetypes that lamented the sweep from pastoral to progressive ideals.
Glynn Galloway: Pronghorn, Mixed Media, 2018
In the 1800’s, huge Pronghorn herds, estimated to be 50 million strong, shared the shortgrass prairies of the Great Plains and southwestern deserts with an untold number of bison and deer. All the Native American tribes, with the exception of the Apache, hunted the pronghorn for the meat they provided for food and the skins that were fashioned into clothing. Even the bones were carved into tools, weapons and objects of art and worship.
The Pronghorn were also an important part of Native American spiritual beliefs and folklore, particularly as totem spirit animals. Pronghorn totems have a strong connection to the qualities related to the Brow (or Third Eye) since their eyesight is eight times better than humans. Those who choose the Pronghorn as their totem were imbued with keen intuition and were capable of clearing their subconscious and opening themselves up to spiritual knowledge and wisdom. “Pronghorn” is constructed from a partial Pronghorn antelope skull, wet molded leather and vintage burlap mounted in an antique sprinkler ring. The base is a vintage cherry wood bookend. The piece was finished with transparent airbrush acrylics.
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Cody Norton is an Elgin, Texas-born artist. He is currently pursuing his Master of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture and Post Studio Practices at the University of Colorado Boulder. As an interdisciplinary artist, he is exploring the ways humankind has disrupted and intervened in ecosystems across North America. His goal is to discover how human experiences intertwine with nature’s experiences of man-made destruction. Cody received his BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of North Texas in the fall of 2020. He has exhibited internationally and nationally in cities including London, New York, Glasgow, São Paulo, Dallas, Austin, San Jose, Santa Fe, and Boulder. He recently was published in The Purposeful Mayonnaise Magazine based in London Canada, and in a Shout Out DFW article highlighting his art and educational career. He was also named as one of Dallas-Fort Worth’s top 30 emerging artists 2020-2021.
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L.A. Crawford is a multidisciplinary artist based out of Baltimore Maryland. Suburbia, gender roles, and how historicism is constructed serve as points of investigation in building out tangible and metaphysical meaning in their work. Crawford received their B.F.A. from University North Carolina at Greensboro in painting (2017) and M.F.A. from Maryland Institute College of Art, Mount Royal School of Art (19).
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Glynn W Galloway is a self taught artist living in Las Vegas, NV with his lovely wife Donna. He is a retired Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist and a 24 year veteran of the US Navy. He has 4 grown children and 9 grandchildren.
the museum of americana: A LITERARY REVIEW 