Transformation 1 and 2, 2010, watercolor, 8x23
I painted these two following the passing of Lee Hancock, my long time friend. What happens when we die? What happens to the nickel weight that goes missing upon death? We'll never know. But living through the loss of a loved one, as we all will do, and dying as we must, I tried to grapple with my sense of Lee's spirit rising, transforming from body to pure spirit. Form to amorphousness.
One night, just after Lee's passing, I was describing her death to a friend while sitting on the terrace outside our kitchen. It was dusk and darkening around us. All at once a curtain of fireflies appeared around us, like two walls, rising up as high as the tall trees surrounding us. It was transfixing. It felt as though these fireflies must have been connected Lee.
Form and formlessness. We don't do well with the latter. We can't help but look for signs in the world around us. Or (I can't help but wonder) do we sometimes get glimpses of the beyond in moments like this, when we look closely?