FLY AWAY
The title of this piece is "Fly Away", named after the hymn "Ill Fly Away" and is directly inspired by the fear the song gave me.
My father was a Baptist minister so I spent a lot of time in the church as a child. I couldn't figure out how the lyric "when I die halleluiah by and by" could ever comfort anyone. Looking around at the people in the pews around me I vaguely understood that it was about leaving a lifetime of toil to spend eternity in paradise but it always left me with a dark feeling. To me death was overwhelming, scary and hopefully eons away. This was my first experience facing my own mortality.
The skull floating in a clear blue sky is an obvious reference to death on a beautiful, sunny (Sunday) morning. The cardinals, aside from their conveniently named religious counterparts, could be a metaphor for children, or children of God, celebrating the death of the skulls owner.

PRINT
A beautiful print on museum quality, acid free cardstock. **SOME TRIMMING REQUIRED**