Walton Ford, La Historia Me Absolvera (detail), 1999, etching, aquatint, spit-bite aquatint, and drypoint on paper, 44" x 30".

 

In my mind I live somewhere between the highlands of Kenya and the canopies of the Amazon, among magnificent creatures. The reality of my existence is much more urban and my choice of wildebeests much more limited. So here in New York I surround myself with renderings of animals in all shapes and forms collected from my travels. In my home hangs an Italian circus poster at least five feet tall of a beautifully painted rhinoceros, on another wall a knitted baby tiger and the cover of a nature magazine from the fifties with deer roaming the meadows. Not to mention the half-dozen hooks of bronze elephant heads supporting my clothes with their trunks. At the studio, my desk is flanked by three bronze life-size baby impalas while on the surface roam two porcelain zebras and a lone tiger.

It has been said that animals live completely in the present. They don’t r…