Red Legs

Description

Red Legs was designed, carved, written, and printed in June of 2012. This poster was part of the Myth/Mystery series, funded by the Tacoma Arts Commission. The image on the poster was inspired by Welcome Figure, carved by Qwalsius (Shaun Peterson).

The words on the poster read:

And it came to pass that an unnamed woman rose up and heard a voice, telling her to go. And the unnamed woman went without questioning, as the voice commanded her. The woman was two score years and four when she took all the possessions she had accumulated and placed them in a blue Ikea shopping bag and set out for downtown. The woman traveled as far as the light rail stop on 19th and Pacific. And there the voice spoke through a burning Big Leaf Maple tree and said, “To your offspring will I give this land, as far as the gravel quarries on the eastern slopes and as far as the gravel quarries on the western shore and as far as the waters to the north and as far as the armies gathered in the south.”

And the fire commenced to burn so fiercely that the skin of the woman turned bright red, but she was not consumed. From that day, she became known as Red Legs and a great power fell upon her, so that Red Legs could raise buildings from the mud with only a word. And from the flames, she spoke the word, Union, and raised a building as a monument to the voice. And the building still stands to this day. And its windows blaze as if in flames.