Snoozing in My Big Black Boot

Dimensions:  40" x 26 3/4"

Medium:  Mixed Media Print on Deckeled Edge Paper

Edition Size:  95

Availability:  Available

Year Released:  2017

“Snoozing In My Big Black Boot”, is a print work that continues to use the object matter and a semiotic title to camouflage the actual subject matter within the architecture of the image.

A short time ago, I required a fairly serious foot surgery. No worries, after the pain of recovery, all is well. But, during the early days of that recovery I was instructed to wear a large black boot all day and all night. But, the night proved to be the most challenging, especially while sleeping in bed and swinging my big black boot around Jennifer as she attempted to sleep.

Some of the music being played in the studio along this period of time was from Ice Cube. His track," Walking In My Big Black Boots", became quite obvious as the beginning point for the work's title.

Sparky’s (Charles Schulz) original drawing from his strip that was used for the visual object matter originally incorporated his character of Rerun, Linus's little brother. But as I deconstructed and reconstructed his drawing, I replaced his character of Rerun with his slightly larger character of Linus. This would help emphasize the humor found between the scales of myself, strapped with the big black boot, and the sleep depraved Jennifer.

Finally and most importantly, in my pull of memory, some of my most favorite moments were watching my friend Keith Haring start with his line at one side of the canvas and not finish until he got to the other side. Or, looking at Brice Marden's line moving around his image dodging and intersecting each other, as well as Cy Twombly's childlike line freedom. But, it was, my good friend, Charles Schulz's line that helped me see it all in a new way to produce works like "Snoozing In My Big Black Boot.”

– Tom Everhart