ARTWORK COURTESY OF VENUS OVER MANHATTAN, NEW YORK. PHOTOGRAPH BY CLAIRE ILTIS.Mt. Cook of
Southern alps in
south Island of
New Zeland town
as Church of
Christ, c. 1968.on farms and in a foundry, and traveled the world, including
Asia and Australia. In 1962, already retired in Chicago, he
had a dream and, at 72, began to draw. By the time he died
ten years later, he had produced around 2,000 drawings—
strange shapes that look like segmented islands and ele-
phant skin, geologic maps and sedimentary core samples
marked with nerve systems and erosion, protozoa and lava
that seems to flow into clouds, claw configurations, and bio-
morphic jigsaw puzzles. All are glimmering with prismatic
secondary colors. Things are depicted from all directions at
once—from above, below, left, and right. You see the world
at a great distance, maybe passing on a train, maybe remem-
bered, maybe made up or in tunnel vision. They are people-
less places, yet people have been to, altered, or traveled
through all of them. Yoakum wasn’t looking for the end of
the world. As a Native American and black man, we see him
always looking from a distance at a world he knows well but
is never quite in or part of. ■