“It’s an epic scene but the actual painting, done in 1872 by John Gast is small: 12 3/4 x 16 3/4 inches. Reproductions of it once hung in schools throughout the United States.

Americans know all about this but most other people don’t, I find, so a little background information might help them.

“By the time Texas was admitted to the Union as a state in December 1845, the idea that the United States must inevitably expand westward all the way to the Pacific Ocean had taken firm hold among people from different regions, classes and political persuasions.
The phrase “Manifest Destiny,” which emerged as the best-known expression of this mindset, first appeared in an editorial published in the July-August 1845 issue of The Democratic Review.
In it, the writer criticised the opposition that still lingered against the annexation of Texas, urging national unity on behalf of “the fulfilment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.” HISTORY.COM

I think about this quite a lot: the idea that somebody up there allows certain groups to act in certain ways. It’s not uncommon for this idea to be promulgated by members of the very groups that need a blessing for behaviour that benefits them.
You have to admire the chutzpah of the title.

But my main interest is in the mechanical arrangement of the folks heading west and the nymph hovering in the sky above. As soon as I saw this picture. I thought of making a version in which the westward travellers were fixed to a rolling road and the nymph hovered over them on a springy steel wire. I didn’t want to make a lot of stagecoaches, telegraph wires and railways so instead I made a stream of tiny SUVs travelling to the left on an endless canvas strip. I couldn’t make a flimsy shift for the nymph because my needlework skills are limited so I painted a set of reasonably demure underwear directly onto her body and instead of the original book which presumably gave God’s permission for the mass migration, I gave her a Sears, Roebuck catalogue. I arranged a small hammer device that makes her shiver at the start of the exodus because it’s probably chilly up there in just your bra and pants.” P. Spooner

2024

Height: 24cm
Width: 34cm
Depth: 9cm (13cm incl. handle)

One Only