Jerald Pope

One of more-or-less fourteen kids, I fell off the family flivver as we left Oklahoma for The Promised Land. My absence was not, and apparently still isn’t, noticed. Raised by coyotes, who gave me a taste for road-kill, fool-play, language and images, I languished in dry-as-bone human schools until talking (barking?) my way into Petrochemical College, to major, naturally, in Art. From there I blossomed (brief change of metaphors), creating theater, painting, music, and words, words, words. Following the scent of a woman (actual, not cinematic) to the fecund East Coast, I continued on my messy coyote path, but always with a high elephant eye on Oklahoma (confused metaphor). I split time between Carolina del Norte and my prairie home. Companions say I'm old now: I say perhaps I've died and rebirthed, as Coyote is wont to do. Either way, I sniff and scratch, laugh and lope towards whatever slouching Bethlehem awaits old dogs and new tricks.

Less seriously, I have drawn covers and cartoons for various weekly tabloid newspapers, as well as written and illustrated several children’s books, coloring books, and a graphic novel. I also create art for discerning clients, including book illustration, logos, and portraits of pets, buildings, and other loved ones.

I co-founded the award-winning American Theater Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1970. And then did it all again with wife Rebecca Williams, creating the Southernly recognized Serpent Child Productions. I have toured extensively in the grass roots theater movement, and directed internationally, including the Portuguese premier of Tennessee Williams’ Camino Real.

See my latest drawings, paintings, assemblages, and books at harebrandideas.com