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The events of September 11 and other things that happened personally in September, the deaths of our bird and my mother, has definitely had an effect on my art. I have wanted to deal with one aspect of death which I think of as The Incredible Dignity of Death. I have often noticed the dignity of the dead; human, animal or bug...the corpse is beyond any affectation. Since The Artists Group is having a show in September, 2002, the depiction of death became my subject. And then, of course, our 20 year old cat died at home in January. I went from someone with a passing acquaintance with death, to someone all too familiar with it.
I literally stumbled over this bird head in the dark of our yard. There was no body to be found. This is a charcoal drawing of the head, which I have worked on since this depiction. It now somewhat resembles an African mask.
Maybe we can deal with death by staring it in the face.
The bird head was followed by a pastel of a dead butterfly I found on the sidewalk. It was in near perfect condition. I rendered it on it's back, crooked legs showing, antennae gone. Still beautiful and still here in my studio along with the bird head.
There is far more imagery to try to cope with and I'm curious to see how intimate I can become with the subject and what it will look like.

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