Mourning into Morning
Helping acceptance after grieving
13" x 19" archival inkjet limited edition print 90lb watercolor paper with a matte finish.
A limited edition of 150 prints, each signed and numbered.
For those in Mourning. Mourning can mean many things. It’s taken me 11 years to release this image as a limited edition print (sigh). I made it following my mother’s death. I was also thinking about the passing of functionalism in calligraphy. I saw something sad in the photo I took of black ink falling through water. Yet I saw something motivational also: calligraphy that generated itself with no way or need for me to control it. No gestures, no text; I allowed the ink to flow by itself. But a subtext became legible to me. Acceptance: the final stage of mourning is liberating, after all the others (denial, anger, bargaining, depression). I wrote the word mourning, small, on wet paper to accompany the image, bleeding downwards. But then I wrote Morning in my energetic calligraphy—just dropping the letter u.
MORNING: new dawn—the one element of the design that moves up, not down. Sunrise after sunset. The release comes from final acceptance. Channeling creativity in this acceptance can take a long time. I gave a gift of this image to a bereaved gallery owner in Moscow, and her emotional response encouraged me to release an edition. I’ve previously shared it with private groups and friends. Relief can lie in acceptance, just as in death. Time to let go and put out the feeling to float in the breeze for anyone. Who knows where the seeds will land and propagate?
LONG-LASTING ARCHIVAL MEDIA
Printed from an Epson SC P800 using Epson’s 9-color UltraChrome ink system at 2880 dpi on Epson acid-free watercolour paper, a combination to ensure long-lasting quality. Wilhelm Imaging Research (www.wilhelm-research.com) suggest prints using this combination of ink and media will last for over 90 years without appreciable fading, based on indoor display framed under glass. Dark Storage Stability Rating at 73°F/50%RH is indicated to last more than 200 years. Detail is super fine at this resolution, almost ten times better than commercial printing so that even under a magnifying glass, prints hold up to scrutiny.
The video below tells more of what I call Abstract Conceptualism in my work.