NIGHT VISION
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Night Visions and Visitors
This work was undertaken in March and April 2003 when war was blazing in Iraq and my father was dying at home. Death became my house guest and I had to acknowledge its presence. Sometimes I would sense a lone figure, and often a group of vague personages, travelling through my waking and sleeping dreams. I referred to them, politely, as The Visitors. They came from afar and brought the gift of awareness. With them were their cohorts, the Birds, who faithfully carried news between here and other-than-here, and took me under wing.
These images arose during a sorrowful and horrible time; they gave me a certain solace, by helping me experience the suffering of all beings and feel the connection among us all.
The metaphor of “night vision” seemed apt: as with the special goggles that let one see in the dark, these circumstances had allowed me the special power of being able to see into a reality normally obscured and unavailable.
—RS
The B&W drawings are pencil and water on paper; the green drawings are oil pastel and pencil on cardboard. Approximate size is 8” x 5”.
This work was shown in the Fall of 2003 at The Doreen Young Gallery at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, U.S.A. It formed one half of a two-person exhibit entitled Night Work (with Carol Beth Icard).
