...And Dance by the Light of the Moon

I have been carrying this little doodle around for years.

I was at one of those outdoor art festivals in Santa Fe some years back and sales where pretty slow. I'd picked up an earworm somewhere and couldn't get this silly old song out of my head:

Buffalo Gals won't you come out tonight
Come out tonight
Come out tonight

Buffalo Gals won't you come out tonight
And dance by the light of the moon...

And on and on it went (I've since learned to play it on the ukulele). So it got me to thinking; just what the heck is (or was) a 'Buffalo Gal' anyway? I started doodling in my sales book and came up with the sketch above. I liked the composition right away and thought it might make a nice painting, but, one way or the other, I didn't get around to painting it for another five years or so.

It finally came out of hiding last winter as I was preparing for a solo show up in Jerome (cool little art town - well worth a visit). The finished watercolor painting is 20x28" and follows that original doodle pretty closely.


I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, and as is often the case, I only figured out what the painting was about long after it was finished. I think these ladies are spirits of the open prairie - they personify freedom, feminine strength and the strange, wondrous things that can happen in the wide-open spaces under a full moon.

© Dave Wilder