Persephone's Part Time Waitressing Job in Hades

This is my new painting titled Persephone's Part Time Waitressing Job in Hades. I created this painting for an exhibition at the BathHouse Gallery called Verse and Reverse.
The painting shows Persephone, the daughter of Demeter (the bringer of seasons) and Zeus, who was abducted by Hades and brought to live in the underworld for half of each year. Persephone is shown waitressing at a diner in Hades, serving a slice of lemon and a bowl of seahorse soup, with one of the seahorses rising up from his fate to look at Persephone accusingly. The waitress wears an orchid in her pocket, still an admirer of flowers even after being abducted while picking them many years ago.
The story I was given for the Verse and Reverse show was by a writer named Stephen Paul Feagans. The story itself is about a couple's car breaking down in a small town and coming across a Cadillac in a museum given to one of the locals by Elvis. There is a part in the story where the couple is talking to a waitress in a diner, I took that one scene and developed on it adding my own associations into this subject matter.

Video for Verse and Reverse art reception

Pictures from Verse and Reverse Reception

Me and the writer I collaborated with, Stephen Paul Feagans

Zoe peaking out from Daddy's legs (bottom half of the previous photo taken with writer)

One of the biggest compliments I can have is when a child likes my artwork. Their view on art is untarnished by our insubstantial, culturally-biased, arbitrary "rules" of art

View of the White Rock Lake behind the gallery

3 drawings about 3 places

The first of these is a drawing of Sedona, Arizona. I drew this from our hotel balcony when we stayed there in 2007. The view shows the green valley, the river, the birds flying around and the orange rocky peaks towering over the patchwork of green. I also drew a shadow with 3 heads to represent myself, my wife and our daughter walking in the valley.

The drawing above is of a section of Dallas I use to hang out in a lot called Deep Ellum. Deep Ellum has a lot of clubs, bars, tattoo parlors and so on. I drew the scene as if it were the year 1992 since that represents a year I was always down there.


The last of these 3 drawings is of New York City. This shows a typical midday pedestrian scene. Even though the subway entrance sign says 4th street, the image I based this on was midtown, at 34th and 8th ave near where I used to work.

(You can click on any of the images to see a more detailed view.)