Fuerstinnen Grab
(German for the Lady’s tomb)
24 x 30 inches
Acrylic on Canvas

When my fairy god-mother aunt died we wanted to send her on her way in style, like an Egyptian queen, equipped for her journey all the way.

As this is frowned upon in Germany we hiked far into the forest on the land where I had grown up, and we all had lived, to a beautiful spot overlooking a valley of apple trees.

We dug a 3 foot deep hole and on the bottom I deposited her wedding rings (two), followed by an assortment of things that were important to her in life. Gummi bears and butter, cigarettes and fire, liquor and roses, her horses and Porsche (in miniature) her dogs, and to guard it all, a photo of her guardian, this very intense looking man we could never figure out whose image graced every one of her living spaces throughout life.

When I returned home I scraped the dirt from my hiking boots, mixed it in with the paint to fix it forever in this memory.