When I first moved to Tucson eleven years ago, I found the concept of Día de los Muertos to be strange. The more I learned about the tradition, the more I realized that celebrating and remembering the lives of those we have lost is a healthy alternative to strictly mourning their deaths. For quite a few years, I have been exploring the idea of commemorating lives with the connections that humans have with nature in my artwork. In this piece, I created a skull to represent every season. I like the idea of reminiscing and cherishing people throughout the year rather than only on November 2nd. I also see a correlation between the seasons in a year and the seasons of a life. I created prints representing the stages in a metamorphosis to emphasize this idea.
Dimensions: 7.25" x 41"
Process and Materials: The skull, chrysalis, sphinx moth, leaf and caterpillar are original linocut prints on batik fabric. I removed the dye from the skull and some of the other images to lighten or alter the color. Fabric dye markers and prismacolor pencils were used to add additional color. The words were printed with rubber stamps using ink. Applique, embroidery and vintage beads were added to complete the blocks. “Winter” is also embellished with quartz crystals and glitter.