A five-pointed star, heavy and dark, on a ground the color of dust. LIBERTY along the bottom, and a yellow burst coming off the upper left like the sun or a muzzle flash.
Liberty or death, and the title takes the second half. The star is a badge, which historically settled which of the two you were getting.
How these are made. Latex lays the ground. The mark goes down in oil stick, then gets worked over with an old brush still carrying dried oil and chunks of whatever it was used for last, dragging the image apart and pulling pieces of it back off. Then a blow torch. The oil stick burns and dries and leaves a barnacled crust behind. What is left is a mark that looks like it has been out in the weather for a hundred years.
14 × 17 in · Latex, oil stick and coffee on watercolor paper · 2026
A five-pointed star, heavy and dark, on a ground the color of dust. LIBERTY along the bottom, and a yellow burst coming off the upper left like the sun or a muzzle flash.
Liberty or death, and the title takes the second half. The star is a badge, which historically settled which of the two you were getting.
How these are made. Latex lays the ground. The mark goes down in oil stick, then gets worked over with an old brush still carrying dried oil and chunks of whatever it was used for last, dragging the image apart and pulling pieces of it back off. Then a blow torch. The oil stick burns and dries and leaves a barnacled crust behind. What is left is a mark that looks like it has been out in the weather for a hundred years.
14 × 17 in · Latex, oil stick and coffee on watercolor paper · 2026
