The Miracle

Around 1980 I was reading a now defunct magazine by the name of "South African Panorama." One article was about the diamond mines in South Africa and the writing discussed the process of taking raw diamond chunks out of the mines and making them into highly polished gems. With the article was a series of photos showing the stages of diamond cutting. The first photo was of a raw diamond, the next was the initial stage of cutting it into what looked like a glass bubble, and then the next photos showed the facets being cut into the diamond. An idea was born in my mind of doing a metamorphosis scene of bubbles turning into diamonds. The idea was put on the back burner for 8 years. By 1988 I was ready to tackle the complex design. I had to take photographs of someone blowing bubbles, of diamonds and how light reflected from them, and a model to pose for the scene. My mother volunteered to model for the scene and the sweater that the diamond catching girl wears was actually a sweater my mom wore at the time. Of course, the faces were of younger girls from photographs because I wanted a scene with children playing. I named the drawing "The Miracle" which to me represented the unexpected miracles that can happen in our lives and our quest to overcome adversities and hopeless situations. I wanted to make the fairly large drawing into a print. I used a printer in Amarillo, Texas and the first drafts were unsatisfactory to me. After several attempts of the printer to produce a print to my standards, in his frustration he invited me to be involved in the printing process. I went into the print shop with the huge printing press and helped with the settings until a perfect print came out. We made 100 prints of a first edition and then made 25 prints of a second and much rarer second edition. That would be the last edition of this drawing to ever be made. This drawing won several regional art competitions and was featured by the ABC television news in Amarillo. It also was featured in the Amarillo Accent Magazine and in the Best of the Southwest Art Magazine. It was accepted in the Best of the Southwest Art Show and Competition as the only black and white piece. This show was only by invitation and included the works of the best artists in Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. It has gone on to become a favorite of collectors and praised by art critics. I know that people in some countries around the world own this print. Those countries include Germany, Italy, Slovakia, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, and the Philippines. Richard Thomas who played John Boy in the television series "The Waltons" and Donald Trump each own a print. This particular drawing was the true beginning of my particular style of pencil work to emerge.