News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Skip Armstrong has created a five-panel depiction of the Mayan creation myth as a commission for a Mexican restaurant in a Las Vegas resort.
The Hero Twins are the key figures of Mayan mythology.
For five weeks, J. Chester "Skip" Armstrong wielded his chainsaw to bring forth a myth - the Mayan creation story. The massive five-panel mural, carved into Oregon alder, may be the masterwork of Armstrong's long and storied career as a woodcarver.
His work will grace a stone wall at Javier's Mexican Restaurant in the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
A featured spot on the Discovery Channel reality TV show "Saw Dogs" led to the unique commission.
"I got a call from these hot design teams from L.A. and Las Vegas," Armstrong told The Nugget. The designers had seen his work on TV and immediately scrapped a metal concept for the restaurant and offered the commission to Armstrong.
The designers wanted a theme featuring imagery from the Mayan creation myth and the Mexican Dia del Muerto (Day of the Dead) - and they turned Armstrong loose to develop the concept.
"It totally evolved as it went," Armstrong said. "I tried to understand the Mayan world in its totality."
The imagery plays out across the five panels, starting with the genesis of the Hero Twins after their father Hun Hunahpu is tricked into the underworld and sacrificed. The Hero Twins grow up to avenge their father by defeating the lord of the underworld in the ball game that was central to Mayan culture.
The panels depict both the Underworld and the "Middle Kingdom" (our world). Jaguars and a feathered serpent are recurring themes across the panels. The Mayan people are depicted as growing from corn stalks, then the scene shifts to the Spanish Conquest; a Mayan temple morphs into a Spanish church, depicting the Catholicization of the native population and the final panel depicts the end of the Mayan calendar as the feathered serpent consumes the world.
Yet the Tree of Life remains leafed, symbolizing the end as merely the turning of a new chapter.
"Maybe life continues in the Sixth Epoch," Armstrong mused.
In the Underworld, which flows across the bottom of the panels, skeletons dance and cavort in celebration of Dia del Muerto.
"So much of this is raw, chainsaw finish," the artist noted. "It was very important to them (the clients) that it be rough-hewn."
That rough-hewn finish gives a stark immediacy and urgency to the piece, which will be visible from 200 feet away in its final installation.
Armstrong began work on the pieces the Sunday evening after the Sisters Rodeo, using a projector to lay the image out across the panels, the wood for which he secured in Mill City.
Armstrong is inviting the public to a viewing of the piece on Friday, July 27, at 7 p.m. at 68105 Peterson Burn Rd. (off Edgington Road).
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
Reader Comments(0)