epiphany formed in front of my eyes. I was drawing the white buffalo, which was bigger than life! Niagara Falls “is” the white buffalo. I believe the creation story of the Lakota Indians using the White Buffalo as the giver of life is an allegory for Niagara Falls because water is life.
getting wet from the falls. A small section of the forum is directly in the waterfall’s path. I stood there feeling the power of the water rushing over my cold feet. Luckily, it was a warm day. I started drawing, studying the white water, the slippery- soaked boulders, and the mist. While drawing, I thought about Japanese woodblocks and how they use stylization to represent water. Without realizing it, the mist started to look like horns, and the falls looked like dreadlocks—an
The surprising thing about seeing Niagara Falls the first time was that my idealized mental version was nothing like reality. I expected blue water. What I saw was white water and a dark brown river. What captured my imagination is very hard to draw: the mist. The mist was everywhere in large masses above and below the falls. I took an elevator ride 18 floors through the rock to the bottom of the falls. You get to walk on a rickety wooden platform in sandals and raincoats while
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