Giants in My Art and in History
As a child, I would lie down on the floor, feet away from our black-and-white television. My thumb was securely snug in my mouth, my other hand holding my blankie. I watched as a big hand place a chair before the fireplace inviting the viewer to take a seat. The show featured three main characters: a giant named Friendly, who lived in a huge castle, along with his puppet animal friends Rusty, and Jerome.
The program opened with a camera moving over a quite convincing mock-up of a natural landscape and a castle set within the trees, before settling on a large brown boot. The voice says, "Look up, look waaaay up" and the cameras pull back to show the viewer the friendly face of the silver-haired giant inviting you to his castle.
Children’s television in Canada portrayed giants as friendly and wonderful hosts. Unlike the giant in Jack in the Beanstalk, who did not take well to the rapscallion ways of young Jack.
Interestingly, but rarely discussed is the existence of giants in the Torah (Old Testament). As the story goes spies were sent into Gaza by Moses to get the lay of the land and check out the inhabitants. They came back with stories of giants, “Anakim” and “Nephilim”, the Nephilim being the “fallen”, those giants who were the spawn of gods who had taken human women and fathered titans.
In Greek mythology, the gods are giants who also came down to earth to take human women for the means of procreation. Again producing giants and men and women with great powers.
For me, the appearance of a giant in a painting creates a dilemma. How is humankind supposed to respond to the presence of a being that could with the swipe of his hand wipe out a village, taking the lives of the inhabitants with such ease and lack of remorse?
How are we supposed to react? This existence of a dilemma is part of our everyday experiences, whether it be how to deal with a noisy neighbor or what to do with an enemy on your border.
In the painting “Attention Walmart Shoppers”, I try to provide two reactions to an infant gone wild. The baby has crawled down from the mountains and on seeing all the cars in the parking lot, which look like toys to him, He immediately takes to chewing on vehicles, ripping them apart, setting them alight, and wreaking havoc. What to do?
On one side of the picture plane we see the first responders, both the firefighters and the police ready to do battle with the giant baby if he becomes homicidal.
On the other side of the painting, we have an opposite reaction. A number of employees have gotten together and gathered up the largest plush toys and joined a young girl, holding a string of balloons as a means to deflect the giant's attention from his playful yet dangerous destruction.
Like I said the painting presents a dilemma, much like many of the dilemmas we face as individuals, groups, and or nations. What to do?