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Sacajawea was pretty amazing. She was pregnant with a child and then gave birth to said child while on the expedition with Lewis and Clark back in 1804. She was detrimental in helping the expedition with relations with the Shoshone tribe that lived near the Rocky Mountains at the time. You have to remember that no white people had been this far west ever, and it was probably a good idea to have an interpreter. Even Sacajawea couldn't help the expedition once they crossed the Rockies, as she had never been that far west either. However, the whole expedition made it to the Pacific and back while only losing one man the whole time. And that was before they even left the Territories! Sacajawea died young at the age of 24, but had packed a lot of life into those 24 years. This person whom I am referring to as Sacajawea in this picture is no doubt not even close to what Tim or I were thinking about when we drew this picture back in November of 2011. Tim drew the face and I drew the body from what I can tell, and we probably didn't think it looked anything like Sacajawea then (or now, to be honest). However, like I have said before on this blog, I name these things to try to harness the chaos and turn it into something one can grasp. I could have easily called this one "Deadhead Tacos" and people would say, "Oh, there is a severed head inside a taco. That makes sense." I could've called it "Outside the Cabin in the Woods" and people would say, "Oh, I saw the horror movie with a similar title and this does look like what would be happening outside that cabin during the daytime." I think what my point is, is that no matter what these things are called, they are still an exercise in randomness. For instance, the vacuum cleaner-looking thing at the left hand side of the panel started as an espresso stain on the dupe pad. Then it got turned into the vacuum cleaner-like thing that stands before us today. Yes, that is cliche, but you have to understand that these drawings were done in a working restaurant during working hours, so these "mistakes" often happen. The days, weeks, and months that it takes Tim and I (and also some guest collaborators) to complete these drawings make most of them listless and afloat on strange seas that have no beginning and no end, but simply bob and turn with the current. Once they get nearer to their completion, sometimes they are pulled together by a strand or two of cohesiveness, but even then, it is a separate idea that has come up in the heat of the moment and sometimes will have nothing to do with the drawing as a whole; it bullies it's meaning into the drawing that was once just trying to get along in this crazy world. Then, you slap a name on it, and that further harnesses it so that now, when the viewer sees the title and the imagery together, they say, "Oh, I can totally see that Sacajawea is having a nightmare. I too hate traffic, Smurfs, cowboys and mummies and would not want to dream about them in this fashion." The fact of the matter is that Tim and I drew this picture over two years ago, I colored it in and posted it on Bookface on November 23, 2011 and I named it "Sacajawea's Nightmare" today, about an hour ago, on October 16, 2013. I think that this reasserts the drawings randomness, but I guess one could argue that it does the opposite. That the process eventually makes the piece cohesive and compartmentalizes the chaos and makes it orderly. But, as my 8 loyal readers know from previous posts, this is the question I keep asking myself about these drawings. Namely, "Is it chaos or is it order?"
To that, I say, "Oh, I just want to go watch some Smurfs."
