Wolves and humans have been sharing the same land globally for thousands of years. It is under these circumstances that the wolf has undergone many transformations in human culture.
Through folklore, fables, myths and fairytales, the wolf carries a negative connotation, subjected to the role of villain, and often symbols for man’s darkest side (werewolves, for example). And because they are widely regarded as varmints by ranchers, farmers, and cattlemen, and of course through the onslaught of human sprawl, the wolf was exterminated in most of North America and the rest of the world. And it wasn’t done humanely. Popular methods of “control” included (and still include) strychnine and various brutal methods of killing.
Farley Mowat has written: "up until four hundred years ago...wolf [and man] have enjoyed, worldwide, something approaching symbiosis, whereby the existence of each benefited the existence of the other." It was a fact that wolves would follow the hunting man and scavenge in the wake of a hunt. And your dog, who may sometimes seem to own you, claims the wolf as an ancestor, separated by 1% in their mitochondrial DNA.
Even though the reputation of wolves has evolved positively in the past 35 years, humans still have difficulty sharing territory with another top predator. One only has to look at the continuing battle between ranchers and biologists in Yellowstone, or the Palin-approved “wolf control” methods in Alaska, or simply look at the rest the world where wolves are nothing more than a character in folklore.
As a wild species, wolves live a life of uncertainty. Their life-span depends on the climate and seasons, on the migration routes and the danger of their prey, on disease, starvation, other territorial wolves from differing packs, and more. Humans make life for wild species that more difficult. Even the biologist's methods of sedating, collaring, and tagging dilutes the wild.
I attempt to understand wildness through my art, veering away from romantic depiction (such as a wolf howling at the moon), nor trying to convey that I seemingly know the wolf other than as an artist bystander who is mesmerized by a look in their eye and the plating of their fur. And even through this eye, I have never witnessed a wild wolf. In this sense, I do have a fantastical notion of wildness, something I can't begin to truly grasp. Truthfully, the very act of painting wolves inflames the romance, a delusion caused by my fascination for them.
My works are titled in accordance with scientific fact that pertains to a wolf’s weight, or territorial range, or amount of food it can eat annually. A slice of information that can give some weight to their lives as a wild species in an ever-shrinking wild land.
-Mikhyla Stewart