Acrylic painting, 16 x 20.
"Event Horizon" by Frank Wu
This piece illustrates the story by Sean Klein, for an upcoming issue of Talebones magazine. The story concerns Christopher Columbus, black holes, and a woman who travels very, very far from home.
The female model for this illo is named Kelly. When I asked her to pose for me, I asked her to look up and think far away thoughts, as if imagining she was going through a wormhole to another dimension. I was really impressed because she knew exactly what I was talking about!
As for the model for Columbus, nobody knows exactly what he looked like. But that apparently didn't stop sculptors and painters from making his image; there are about 150 (!) statues of Columbus scattered throughout these here United States. There are eight (!) in my home state of California alone. Seven, I should say, as the one closest to me, in the San Jose city capital building, was heavily damaged. A protestor - apparently still ticked off about how poorly Columbus treated the native Americans on Hispaniola - took a sledgehammer and broke off both legs and one arm. The statue is still in Italy, being repaired at the marble works. Which meant that I had to drive an hour to San Francisco to check out the Columbus statue there. It seems to have worked out, though.
Image (c) 2002 Frank Wu