Another George Caleb Bingham inspiration. The name of the painting that inspired this was his piece called "Fur Traders Decending the Missouri." I had seen it at The Met, and the shape of the boat reminded me of the paddleboards we use on The Finley River near our home. My sister was 9 months pregnant here. And I made this piece during the week that R v Wade was overturned. Without trying making an overt statement about how I felt about that, I wanted to suggest the impossibility of this woman's plight. So I loaded up the coolers or cargo, put her son on the front and then told her she had to balance and paddle. She makes it look pretty easy but it was really only possible for a few seconds at a time. The child wearing the shark fin in the background was another detail I added to give the sense of impending doom.
