Drawings by Los Angeles-based artist J. Michael Walker
This piece is loosely based on the forms of Byzantine icons - hence all the gold leafing. Not only is the background gold leafed, so also is the decoration of Guadalupe's cloak and dress (a true exercise in all-thumbs agility and patience).
The model is my dear friend Celia, a Tarahumara woman in the Sierra Tarhumara of the Mexican state of Chihuahua, and one of the sweetest, gentlest, and most ego-less persons I've been privileged to know.
