Hard Times

Graphite on paper 15 x 21 inches 1987

Artist Note

Hard Times is a meticulous pencil recording of one of the first known double-exposure photographs by Oscar Rejlander from 1860. I reproduced this historical image using the grid method to enlarge the original five by seven photograph into a fifteen by twenty-one inch piece of art. The scene depicts a poor family in the nineteenth century where a mother sleeps beside her son while a father sits at the edge of the bed with a weary and hanging head. He holds a saw which acts as the foundation for a superimposed image of the boy representing the singular reason why the father works such exhausting hours. Above the bed a floating image of the father appears as a recording of the mother dreaming of her husband during her brief moments of rest. I chose to use pencil with no color for this work because it captures the raw and somber reality of their lives while highlighting the delicate textures of the dream world. This piece serves as a testament to the internal visions of hope and struggle that sustain a family through periods of extreme hardship. It is a map of the love and sacrifice that bind a household together across the generations.