Original artwork description:

Don Solon Tello Lozano (1918-2010) was a highly respected mestizo ayahuasquero, who trained a host of apprentices during his life, including Jose Campos, Maria Christina Mendoza, Jorge Herreros, and Dr. John Burchard. Although I never studied personally with don Solon, his ceremonial traditions and songs played a prominent role in shaping my own ayahuasca work.
In my honor portrait of don Solon, I show him smoking a mapacho and using a bundle of Rue (Ruta graveolens) as a shacapa. Unlike some ayahuasqueros, Solon preferred to dress in ordinary clothes and often wore a baseball cap. I indulged in a little artistic license, depicting a gold sun design on his cap and some ancient rock art figures from Colombia on his shirt. I show him against a backdrop of ayahuasca vines (left) and chacruna plants (right), surrounded by several shamanic allies: a rufous crested coquette (Lophornis ornatus) hummingbird and a pair of scarlet macaws. Hummingbirds are closely associated with ayahuasca, and scarlet macaws are kept as protective pets in the Amazon because they squawk loudly at the approach of strangers.

Materials used:

Acrylic paints,

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