John Phelps painting on location in Comfort, Texas.
John Phelps is known for his knowledge of the West, in particular the gear of cowboys and Native Americans. He can tell you what saddle, gun, or headdress is appropriate for a given time period, and immediately identify a number of errors in a historical painting. That may be part of the reason his artist friends were surprised and impressed by one of his latest paintings, “Coyote Emerges.”
“I used to be a buckskinner, and I made teepees, so authenticity means something to me,” says Phelps. “What people pass off as early American history has been so influenced by Hollywood. Instead of people researching before doing a painting, they will watch a movie or go to a modern powwow and let that influence them.”
But with “Coyote Emerges,” Phelps is approaching the truth from a different angle. There’s no veracity in a person emerging from soil on feet made of tree roots, but the Wyoming artist is depicting a myth. Phelps imagined the coyote, who in many Native American myths is a trickster god, emerging from the soil. “I have always been interested in Native American culture,” says the artist. “There’s a common thread among the different tribes regarding the coyote trickster—and in reality the coyote is the smartest critter running around out there on the plains.”
“Coyote Emerges,” by John Phelps, 2014, oil, 20 x 16.
Phelps says he was inspired to paint “Coyote Emerges” in part by a sculpture he saw of another Native American legend—that of the Water Babies. Like many legends around the world, this one seems designed to scare children from a very real danger, in this case, drowning. But Phelps also says he was simply looking for a new way to explore his favorite subject matter. “I look at how I can paint something different,” he says. Will there be more paintings of Native American myths? “It’s an interesting enough subject matter that I will definitely investigate it more. It might go someplace.” Ω
Phelps mentoring a high school student at an SKB workshop in Dubois, Wyoming.