2014 • 34″ x 17.5″
acrylic, spray paint on used fence pickets

Before coming to the San Antonio, I hadn’t known of the German culture here and in the Hill Country, much less the mixture of Texan, Mexican and German that I understand is part of what is loosely referred to as Tejano. Being of German decent, I fixated mostly on the polka beat and accordion heard in the folk music of this area reflecting the 19th century German influence in this part of Texas.

Here I combined a German symbol, the gnome, with one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Mexican voodoo holiday of Dia de los Muertos. Proudly he sits on a stump boldly telling us who and what he is.

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Posted by Dick Van der Wurst

Having descended down into South Texas through the Hill Country one day long ago, Dick never claimed to be Texan, but his German heritage and love for tacos is something he shares with the inhabitants of the region. Having earned an MFA from Miami University, OH, he spent the worst years of his life up north, maturing artistically and refining an Iconoclasmatic Pop Art™ style shaped by his experiences as a recovering Catholic, cancer survivor and optimistic existentialist. He lives and works in his humble turquoise studio-home (Dick’s WurstHaus Art Shanty) near downtown San Antonio.