I previously posted a photo of Ralph Fasanella’s painting titled May Day, painted in 1974 in oil on canvas.
Reading Fasanella’s Wikipedia entry provides an interesting look at how an artist develops, is influenced, and how his reputation, recognition, and popularity can be swayed by shifts in politics.
Among other things, I was struck by this: In a press release regarding his death, John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, declared Fasanella to be “a true artist of the people in the tradition of Paul Robeson and Woody Guthrie.”
I discovered so much about Paul Robeson doing research for the Neverending Saga, and Woodie Guthrie has always been an important cultural reference for me.
About this painting in particular: Fasanella’s art was highly improvisational. He never planned out works, and rarely revised them. He said of his 1948 painting May Day, it “just came out of my belly. I never planned it. I don’t know how I did it.”
I suspect many writers can understand this, as well as musicians.
Celebrating an nostalgic cross-stitch of a pre-colonial parade through the theme park 🙂