Old and Young in the Wild West

Sketch Old and Young: May 2013: (c) Luke Bennette

Sketch Wild West: May 2013: (c) Luke Bennette

 The sketch of the Old and Young is a single person's image cut in six mirror fragments. Three of them exhibit the older woman while the other three exhibit the younger and pregnant woman. The image tells a story. That the woman was pregnant and that later she mourns the loss of her child. The sketch of wild west is in fact the child which the woman has borne. If you look to see the bracelet on the woman's right hand (your left) and the bracelet on the young boys staff you will notice that they are one and the same.

Colored Old and Young: May 2013: (c) Luke Bennette

Colored Wild West: May 2013: (c) Luke Bennette

The colored version says little more than the sketched version. You will notice again that the bracelet around the woman's hand and on the boy's staff are colored blue so that there is a connection. Moreover the boy's feathers match the young mans feathers and the red bandana around the cowboy's neck. The boy ends up on his own (how we do not know) and grows up in the forest, later to become a feared gunslinger. 

Digital Old and Young: May 2013: (c) Luke Bennette

Digital Wild West: May 2013: (c) Luke Bennette

The digital version gives a certain glow to the woman's picture that puts her in the past, while the sunlit effect and the shadow of the gunslinger suggests a man whose life is in shadow. If at first we are tempted to think highly of the gunslinger we would be wrong, for he has become what he is on account of his long trek alone. One might even wonder how he got into the situation in which he now finds himself, whether the mother is to blame, or even whether the father might have been absent. It is a story that has no clear beginning or ending.