The Watcher by Rebecca Zook

Original Acrylic on Panel
12 x 12 Unframed

A survivor, coyote is always watching. Loved and hated by man, he must be clever to find ways to survive in his changing world. Curiosity leads to opportunity. Opportunities he cannot afford to lose. Coyote is more though. He still finds joy in the face of adversity, dancing and singing in the moonlight.

If I have an animal totem, it’s the coyote, encountering them in sporadic points in my life leaving in awe. As a child, we traveled from Texas to California with a travel trailer one summer stopping at roadside attractions along the way. I remember being at the edge of with wild desert and feeling eyes on me. I turned to see a coyote. We stood facing each other. I did not feel threatened. I was mesmerized. I turned back around to show my Dad, but the coyote had vanished leaving a vivid impression. As a teenager, I was driving home late at night and spied a coyote following the railroad tracks in the middle of suburbia. With no one around, I stopped the car. He also stopped and once again we were face-to-face, studying one another, until he slowly turned to continue down the lonely tracks finally fading from view. My awe was tinged with sadness thinking about his displacement from ancestral ranges. There were additional solitary sightings. Me and him where I saw his swiftness, strength and sleek beauty. I had a coyote take up residence under our home one winter. I will forever see the coyote as a survivor. In a way, that is also how I see myself.