A woman stands facing us in the center of the page, wearing a brown suit on top of a blue shirt with a maroon scarf. She has light skin, brown shoulder-length hair, and is looking at us with a full-blown smile. In her left hand, she holds three paintbrushes and right hand is tucked in the pocket of her brown trousers. She stands with one leg in front of the other, as if she is walking toward us. The background displays two separate landscapes behind her. On her left side are rising mountains and canyons, and on her right side are colors in abstract forms including purple, green, orange and some blue on top, both of which remind us of Kay Walkingstick’s artworks. The image is framed in black background decorated by two strings of diamond-shaped cosmic design with colors changing gradually from black to orange on the left and right sides of the cover. The top of the page reads: “Kay Walkingstick,” while the bottom reads: “Closer To The Cosmos.”
The cover from the comic Closer to the Cosmos: Kay WalkingStick. Illustrated by Madi Wong.
Kay WalkingStick, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, first began exhibiting in the late 1960s and is still creating new artworks today. She is celebrated for her powerful landscape paintings, which imbue depictions of place with spiritual significance and cultural memory.
This comic is part of a series Drawn to Art: Tales of Inspiring Women Artists that illuminates the stories of women artists in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Inspired by graphic novels, these short takes on artists’ lives were each drawn by a student-illustrator from the Ringling College of Art and Design.
We invite you to read the comic and share with your friends and young people in your life.
