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Portrait of the Artist:
Edward Swift
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 Persephone in Hades (detail) |
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 Persephone in Hades |
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I was born in Texas in 1943. Texas was once part of Mexico so I always felt that I had one foot in this country to begin with. I was born in what is now the Big Thicket National Preserve. My grandfather was a foreman at Camp Ruby, a sawmill community where I spent my first 8 years. I have written so much about Camp Ruby. There were only about 50 families living there; dirt lanes, a sawmill, and one store surrounded by forest and lowlands. That’s all. In the early 1930's Grandfather accidentally cut off the first finger of his left hand. He was hacking his way through the Thicket with a machete. My Aunt Coleta preserved the finger in a green jar, and to this day it is a family relic. My cousin Joe has it now. This story can be found in more detail in my memoir: My Grandfather’s Finger, published by the University of Georgia Press. Grandfather inhabited another world, literally and metaphorically. The thicket was his world. The woods were his world. He was a very mystical man who liked to sing gospel songs when he was drunk. He was a very happy drunk. When he wasn’t drinking he hardly said anything at all. When he was dying he kept saying: “Isn’t that pretty? Isn’t that pretty?” We have no idea what he was talking about. I prefer people who don’t talk much, but I wish Grandfather had said a little more.
I grew up near the Alabama-Coushatta reservation. The Indians were always in my life, physically as well as mentally. My family is related to the Alabama-Coushatta from generations back. I was always fascinated by their rituals and their ceremonial art. As a young man I lived off and on at the Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico so I know quite a bit about the Northern Pueblos, the rituals, ceremonial objects and the Kachinas. Much of my visual art resembles a kind of Kachina, a figure invested with magical powers or a figure that represents a deity, or some kind of being from God knows where. I believe in magic and enchantment and sacred objects. I don't believe in another world except on other planets. I think a lot of us came from up there somewhere only we’ve lost the memory. Some of us might like to go back. I think I would.
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