Andrea Hornick

Cecilia’s Stag Roots

chalk pastel and graphite on paper

18 x 24 inches

2023

I stand at the edge of the woods, there where the cork trees meet the castle garden. Light green moss offers a delicious distraction, I munch while I wonder what Cecilia will look like, here in this waking reality. Rustling leaves interrupt. I look up to see her; I stop still, though my nose stays busy - onion, sweat, jasmine, olive. She stops still, breathless, but a few feet in front of me.

Our eyes lock. She is graceful, normally, but in this terrain she’s terribly clumsy, encumbered by silk and taffeta: she is draped in layers and puffs of lapis-blue and vermillion-red. Her eyes have glints of the same blue sparked with fire. Distressed, she carries the burden of being a kept mistress. Even as her portrait is being painted by the Maestro, Sig. Da Vinci, the Duke who’s commissioned it is engaged to another woman. Soon, she will be pregnant with his child.

I adore that Cecilia. She is here. Her long fingers run along the cork bark, she does not reach out to touch me, yet. Instead, she fits her palm in the crevices between branches. She stops. I freeze. The breeze continues steady. Steady, patient, even so I suppress twitches in my knees, the forever impulse to run, but I am held by the familiarity of her form. We’ve been guided to this meeting by timeless dreams; we’ve traveled together beat-for-beat for the long of her life.

I bow my head and invite Cecilia onto my back. Awkwardly, she is faced with my antler, intimidating usually, she marvels instead at their velvet coating, yearly renewed. Through her, I am made aware of the outer softness of these, my weapons, and of their ability, as antennae, to sense messages from this world and from others. She notices that they are the same red-brown Da Vinci’s been mixing to render her own hair in its tidy net. An unexpected chromatic alliance of deep-red-purple and dark green. Seems right.

She slides, side saddle onto my bare back, her be-silked frame barely weighs against the sturdy of my musculature. Paired, our contrasting frames color my strength with her vulnerability and we merge. As we run our paired power amplifies. She feels this inhuman pace. For my part, her thoughts and emotions seem to come to my fore: My home, these woods, are stunning through her eyes. As we run, her heady experience permeates my entire being.

Study for Elegant Black Racer Snake Swirls Through its Mini Me, Simonetta Vespucci’s Cleopatra Prop, to Face Out

chalk pastel and graphite on paper

18 x 24 inches

2023

I’m sunning at the edge of the uneven grey stones where they form an edge with the pine needle floor. The people here rarely see me; their view of the environment beyond their manicured dwelling is observed at a distance, perceived as a vague picture. I hear soft, slow steps, though I stay because my aim of being warmed in the sun is being fulfilled. This cozy spot is precisely what I ventured out of the forest to find. I see a woman with a colorful shawl, the red and cream stripes of which look like my venomous cousin, Scarlet, who I do my best not to piss-off; I don’t have venom and she does. Even though I enjoy her wit, I avoid her altogether as she has a short fuse. This shawl on the woman approaching actually has a stripe of green that Scarlet doesn’t have. So, I decide to sit tight.

I’m splayed in a zigzag from which I could race away in a split second, not tightly coiled, in the mid-morning, early spring light. Her dark blonde braids are wrapped in her head like a tree-coiling cousin of mine. She opens the shawl to bare the skin of her chest, her skin is similarly thirsty to mine for a drink of the sun’s rays. Just above her breasts, around her slim neck, I see someone who looks to me like a baby version of another distant relative, Asp. Though this woman has no smells that I don’t recognize as human female, or her perfumes and accoutrements. Her Asp is not alive; my tongue detects no smell and I realize that she wears it as a necklace. We snakes living in an increasingly human world make it our business to know the myths and nightmares people conjure about us. I imagine that she is in a sort of costume evocative of the myth of the breast-biting Asp that Cleopatra used to commit suicide.

“Simonetta, please return, the egg tempera is drying and if it does, the maestro will have to make another batch. We do not want to waste the cochineal,” calls an older female voice. I turn my head impulsively; I would happily snack on some cochineal. The tasty little red bugs are the same color as the red stripe on, “Simonetta’s,” shawl and I gather that she is sitting for a portrait.

Simonetta catches the movement of my head.

“Huhhh!” she is momentarily breathless upon seeing me. Then turns her head to call back, “ten minutes.” I stay still, poised to slither away faster than she’s prepared to walk, ready to race as my human-given name suggests. I usually stay out of sight and am not curious about people. I’d rather flee. Though I’m strangely drawn to Simonetta and her fake Asp, her cochineal-colored shawl that reminds of the delicious bugs and my scary but beloved cousin, Scarlet. Simonetta gingerly tiptoes toward me. I slide slightly away, and she stops. A minute later she tries again. I like her smell of sweet juniper, and I stay, against my instincts.

Simonetta appears braver than most humans and perhaps unusually drawn to me as well. She extends her arm out for me, head tilted away from the arm creating an enticing slide on ramp for me. I sideways-slither a mouse-length closer. Simonetta’s fingertips smell especially of the sweet juniper, so I shimmy a little closer. She touches my skin with one finger and jumps. My skin is dry and warm now, not apparently what she was expecting. I’m increasingly curious about Fake Asp and take the invitation to venture up her arm. She is happy for me to explore; no more flinching. I slide along her skin which is warm in a different way than the sun on the rocks, and soft. I want to be that warm and soft. Luck for me, my body changes to the feels against my skin. She nudges me past her elbow. I slide up her shoulder, around her neck, and down the other shoulder, with my tongue taking in all the smells. She is entranced, and smiling slightly, though still, in caution mode, while I am in a continuous slow motion. We share this moment in the light, her heart beating rapidly, thudding against her ribs under her skin, contrasting in color against mine. In the next instant she has switched into human time and says goodbye, as she leans down for me to slither down. She’s off to continue being painted. I sun on the rocks until the warmth has gone behind the hill.  

Study for Water Rising in Salon over Blue Whale and Louise de Brogile’s Soon to be Pregnant Whomb

chalk pastel and graphite on paper

18 x 24 inches

2023

I am hanging out in the intersection between tunnels, about 100 meters deep down in the southwestern Pacific off the coast of Sydney, Australia. I’m seeing how long I can stretch out the time it takes to traverse between the two furthest tunnels. I only have about 20 or 30 minutes before I need air and release my blowhole. Down this deep where there’s little light, time expands, and 20 minutes can turn into three days. The elongated time is compounded by the fact that when I enter the tunnel I end up in another time and sometimes another space. The length of my body expedites my trip between tunnels since only one end of me needs to touch the entrance to the tunnel for the travel to begin. My body is about 30 meters long and covers most of the distance between the tunnels. So, I’m playing this game of seeing how slow I can move between tunnels, to give myself a chance to think of my intention for the next travel.

While I’m taking my time in this intersection, Louise de Broiglie pops out of the tunnel to my right. She’s wearing a sleek light-cornflower blue scuba suit resembling the color of my skin, with silver buckles that she must have picked up in a tunnel that took her to the 2020’s. The color coordination immediately signals to both of us that we are meant to meet. I can see that she’s fine at this depth and is content to hang out here for another 15 minutes with me. She takes most of the time to swim around me; she wants to experience my whole size, as she read in a library that one of the tunnels took her to, that I’m the largest animal on earth. While she swims around me, I sing for her, in introduction and to keep her entertained. She seems like the type who’s accustomed to being entertained. Taking in the sound, smiling and looking mesmerized, eyes large and incandescent, she now appears ecstatic to see and hear me. She is not frightened, though there are two human helpers with her, smaller than her, who hang back, thoroughly overwhelmed.

When she returns, I send her a telepathic message to try and stay as still as possible. I explain the game to her. While it would take her about 45 minutes to cross from one tunnel to the next, if I was moving at full speed it would only take me a few minutes, and I’d like her to keep me company, stay near my eye. When my nose hits the entrance to the tunnel, since we are together in color, we will depart in unison, as one for our travel. Louise complies and I get the feeling she has never stayed this still, in such sensorial emptiness. The experience of altered time will expand her consciousness and I convey this to her in a feeling, to reassure her and keep her with me; I’m curious to see what adventure we have been brought together to embark upon. I think to her that even though in her ordinary realm it’s only for a few minutes, that time can expand with the depth, dark, weightlessness, and the company of my largeness. I can tell that Louise is indeed marinating her cells, psyche, and spirit in the depth of the deep. This will carry with her back to her time, when she returns, and give her society-self some perspective, and value to others. Even though she is an intellectual in her salon circle, she is known as a lightweight. In her older age, the next chapter of her life, she in now equipt grow into a person of depth and mystery.

We are ready to swim up to the surface, and see the coast of Sydney. I’ve been here every July for the past 50 years, though until now, to her, the teal water and earth-red rocks are only a salon-story. After this marvel, we dive back down to the tunnels.

When we return, we aim to go into the tunnel that will take us to her 1845 Parisian salon. I’m familiar with the purpose of each tunnel and can identify them by the different shapes of their openings. The tunnel to 1845 Paris has a scalloped edge, like the edge of a frilly lace sleeve. We enter and immediately are sitting opposite each other at a tea table. She has a glass plate of large, cooked shrimp with lemon. I have a giant glass goblet of bright algae-green liquid, with a snack of yummy krill floating about, a cute miniscule amount compared to my normal tea. I am human during this time, wearing a light cornflower blue bow tie, white tuxedo, and a long grey beard – I must be a man (for in my whale-body, I’m female, a mother in fact).

At tea, we mind-chat briefly about her great nephew, Louis de Broglie, who will achieve scholarly accolades for writing on the discovery of quantum theory; she understands that the experience of elongated moments she spent with me between tunnels will be passed down to him through her DNA. These are precious moments of great consequence for her descendants.

After tea, it’s time to return to the deep-sea tunnel intersection. I leave her to return to the lace-like Paris tunnel, letting her know I must go up for air.

Ruff-Tree Temple Illuminated by Girl-Lady’s Lightning Bugs

gouache, watercolor, and graphite on paper

18 x 24 inches

Study for “Terrible and Beautiful Head” of Madame Moitessier in its Return to Life by Black Widow,

chalk pastel, watercolor and graphite on paper

18 x 24 inches

2023

I’m hiding in Madame’s pointy grey lace up shoe under the burgundy silk chaise longue that she’s been languishing on for days. Her private dressing salon is an appealing cave for me, with food I can catch in my web at night; she seemed to need my company. Tonight, when she goes to the grand ball. make my way outside, taking my leave of her cozy boudoir. It’s now time to depart the shoe and crawl around slowly while she reads. I rest next to her creamy, soft arm. I was bored and started weaving a web around her left foot. It’s such a dainty, fleshy morsel though I don’t plan to feast on it, only to decorate. I’m typically industrious with my webs, though the vibe in this languid salon is creative diversion. When in Rome.

I am feeling languid, like Madame, as I’m using my creative and physical resources to make unnecessary webs. I see how she gets in a dreamy state, for days, where she does not want to move from her chaise. I observe that it’s tiring to use one’s creativity for tasks that provide no work for survival or connectivity to the world around us.

“Madame, it’s time to get ready for the ball,” a sweet voice rouses her. After she looks up, she sees that a woman beckon at the door. Madame’s mind springs back from the stratospheres to this dark red womb-like room where she finally puts her books down, and readies herself for an gallant evening. It occurs to her that the woman at the door would like to enter. I’m ogling a pair of shimmery satin peach-colored low heels. They look much comfier than my previous hide-out, and upon the maid’s entrance, I scamper inside one.

Ah, yes, please come in, Bridgette. Bridgette covers her dismay with closed-mouth smiles and lilty humming. I stay snug in the shoe. It takes a while for her to pick up strewn scarves and lingerie, stacks of books, and tidy the make-up table. Eventually she has laid out a mass of black chiffon which coalesces into a layered lace-edged dress. She will be covered in black like me and wear a ruby pendant at her chest, reminiscent of my red belly on black exoskeleton, just above my spinneret. Bridgette eventually takes her leave and I venture out of the shoe. Madame’s pearls are glowing orbs, moonlit through the window, displayed on carmine velvet beside her rouge.

After Madame is fully dressed, I dare to show myself. When she exits, I will accompany her, an opportunity to scuttle out the door. When she leans down to put on the shoes Bridgette has put out next to her bed, she gasps upon seeing her left foot and tugs at the tight web. It is sturdy, as webs go, though it is easily torn and removed by her long, decorous fingers. She does not have time to lament or look around for the author of this mischief.

After clasping her pearls, she spins around to catch a view of herself in the long glass, grasping the end of her pearls in the swish of movement. The mirror seems to say, it’s time to leave this den! I cast a web to the top of it and scurry up. She sees me in the midst of her visage. “AHH!” a scream is quickly stifled by her hand over her mouth. Then she is captivated by my red belly encased in black acknowledging the likeness to her ruby on black dress. She inches closer to the mirror. I cast a web to her ruby and swing back and forth between ruby and mirror a few times. While this is not my finest spinning work, my webs are not fanciful in general. She stands mesmerized – and a few shades paler. I have that effect. I land back on the webbed mirror. I want her to see me as a mirror of her. I want her to understand how much energy it takes to spin unnecessary webs. She inches closer to the mirror to inspect me. I catch her attention, like a cricket in my web. Our mind-meld conveys the understanding of her using her energy judiciously. She puts her hand on her womb from which she has borne two children. Her creativity can be used to care for them and to put her ideas to use. I am saying, “when you draw your energy inside to recuperate from societal output, don’t dissipate it by languishing in solitude for days. You are a necessary part of your web.” As she rushes out, I scuttle under-skirt carefully beside what must be a brand-new pair of black silk shoes, relieved to run into the fresh air and under the nearest rock. Madame is purposefully ushered into a carriage.

Shekhina, Cleopatra, Simonetta :: 

Cosmic, Mythic, Legendary 

gouache and graphite on paper

18 x 24

2023

Braiding Snake and Pearls

gouache on paper 

18 x 24

2023

Red Fox Bows Shield Margarita Theresa

chalk pastel and graphite on paper

18 x 24 inches

2023

Winter is almost over in Vienna. The growing warmth draws Margarita Theresa outside just as I am drawing her out of her shell, teasing her. Her walks last longer and she wanders alone, still acclimating to the vast castle grounds. In our encounters, I appear for long enough that she doesn’t doubt she’s seen me. In the hedge maze, I dissolve; she sometimes tries to follow though more often now she just laughs out loud. She understands it’s a game.

We play through the summer. One early fall day, I appear at the edge of the garden, where leaves have started to turn and glint orange in the sun. So too do these burnt orange reds flow through folds and ribbons of her favorite dress. This is the season for this dress. They are my colors too. We blend in color to enter a deeper rung of understanding.

A few months later, on a true autumn day after tea it grows cloudy and the crackling fire beckons me in. On this rare occasion, I curl up in the corner of the velvet couch in her favorite cozy parlor. It is the same earth red of her dress, of my fur. This is the game where I pretend to be comforted by domesticity, though the indoor smells are discomfiting. Leopold is arranging a hunt and I am right under his nose, in cahoots with his young wife. I remain unseen to the house staff, the two Hapsburg toddlers, her confidants, and ladies in waiting. Margarita usually finds me during her solitary afternoons. I play with her so that she may feel more herself, far from Spain.

Bows tied, on her way outside, presumably to look for me, she can’t resist the fire. That dress houses her child-bearing body, the reason she is here. Her and the room’s reds suggest fecundity, though she is a teenager with no desire for her older cousin. I will impart some understanding, to help her withstand the sex, pregnancies, and childbirth. Though, in two children from now, her body will have been done with this world.

Upon seeing me for the first time beyond a fleeting moment, and inside, she starts, blue eyes wide. Her skin cannot go whiter; she nibbles on red Mexican vases made from lead containing clay to achieve her extremely fair pallor. The lead has also made tenuous her tether to the human’s perceived world of separations between the mundane and spirit realms. The clay is leeching her nutrients while producing its desired effect upon her skin color, announcing beyond doubt: she, as the face of her family, is a part of the colonizing class, not one of the colonized.

I curl up tighter, inviting her closer with a tilt of my head. She tentatively sits next to me. We lock eyes. She slowly outstretches her fingers to caress my fur which matches colors of the crackling flames and of her dress. I am real and she is relaxing. I wag my tail and she’s enticed to play. I run quickly, hide, return jump to her side. My quiet barks are insisting, “your turn!” She easily finds coy, quick looks and moves. I jump onto her shoulders and snuggle. She relaxes more though the dress’s scaffold keeps her spine straight. When the prince finds us, my tail is covering the translucent skin of her neck and upper chest (the only skin not covered by her dress) warming and protecting her. Her eyes are softer, more playful. Mine are a piercing light green, cunning, and ready to pounce.

Study from Short Nosed Fruit Bat Hangs with Genevra de Benci on Spike-Protein-Like Juniper Tree Screaming Don’t Shoot the Messenger

chalk pastel and graphite on paper

18 x 24 inches

2023

Upside down, I yawn myself awake and click my tongue, echolocating for strawberries below, but I find only mosquitos humming, whizzing high pitched around my favorite Juniper tree. Even as Genevra finds me, unwittingly. She is standing inside the tree; she has backed so far away from her fiancé that she’s embedded herself there. Perhaps she is at home in it, having always known it as her namesake; “Juniper” interchanges with “Genevra.” Her refined curls blend with the leaves, similar in size, they quiver to me like iron-plum, like reddish-brown, like olive-green. I cannot know color except by how it moves. She is brooding, and only sixteen, it’s understandable that she doesn’t want to marry that merchant, that Luigi Niccolini. I’m hanging on a delicate branch and maneuver to hover as close as possible without touching her forehead. I merge with her third eye; I hope I’ve managed it without invading her space.

Shout as I may Genevra can’t hear my sonar screams. I send thoughts to her, as I yell (reverberate) the two points I know she must hear through her adolescent third eye.

One: she must use her voice within this coming marriage, the one she cannot fathom. The fact that she can hear me, through her third eye, means that she can communicate this way with other beings. Her voice will give her agency and her intuition will guide her to use it.

Two: 650 years in her future, a plague will come. This I can foresee. From a bat it will spread to the humans; its cause -- the bat’s displacement from its habitat by the humans. Her present, Genevra’s Renaissance times, is where it begins. The ‘enlightenment’ they’ve begun to celebrate engenders an illusion that human control over the environment will seed abundance. They cannot see that their narcissism will cause a profound disconnection from, even violence toward, the elements that are our means for existence. Our batty means, but their means too, yes. They’ve put their blinders up; they see nothing of this despite the brilliance of their eyes. The darkness of their enlightenment rises.

I scream volumes. The first point first, to give her the self-assuredness to listen to the second. I ask her to use her voice and attitude to dilute and divert Renaissance aggrandizement of linear order. I am the blind one though it is I who sees that the Renaissance, which humans see as the return to light, has already started to degrade humans’ respect for all beings around them.  It is a deeper step into the nullification of non-linear, intuitive power. Perhaps my foretelling will prevent my descendant bat in the future from conveying that century’s pandemic, the outcome of human solipsism.

The thumb she is under can be her own power to wield. Pubescent navel-gazing can help her locate ingenuity. However insensitive, hers is a powerful family; her voice will be heard. Her family’s arranged marriage for her, then life with Luigi, and even having to lay with him and bear his children, will be the smallest of obstacles she will have to endure, compared to the positive affects she will set in motion for her descendants.

Study from Madame Grand in Skin-Sucker Reverie with Bag Pipe Third Eye Octopus

chalk pastel and graphite on paper

18 x 24 inches

2023

This is my home, green and crystal blue, deep shimmering and cold. My waters are off the Argyll coast of Scotland. I’ve got the best eyes. From here I often see Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun in a tide pool on this rocky coast, marveling at sea stars and glistening dark blue mussels. Le Brun is the most celebrated woman painter of her day, and she pokes at coastal stones together with Catherine Noël Grand, aka Madame Grand, wife of Monsieur Talleyrand. It is Catherine, who she paints; it is Catherine who interests me. I watch her from my body; I am one with her. Being her, my tentacles slide toward turquoise; being with her my body strays not from mostly grey, where dark, my shadows retain the deepest darkest purple. My right eye bobs in and out the water, perhaps they’ll mistake me for a seal until I slink out to touch their ankles. Doubled, I see through Catherine’s eyes and also my own; I am also watching her even as she sees me. When she spots me I put on a brief show of color, rippling chromatic. I am change. They gasp and follow me into the water, and we speed through underwater tunnels.

Simultaneously, Elizabeth is painting Catherine in Salzburg. This magical realm holds more than singular worlds. So we three come up through the tunnels in Sicily and then make our way further through tunnels to Salzburg where they also already are. I slink into Catherine’s skin as she sits for the painting. She’s written a short song that she has shared with Elizabeth and now she holds the sheet music in her hand. This prop from the heart is fitting to this portrait as Catherine is known for her love of music, and her wit in general. This portrait, painted with her lips slightly parted in song, holding the song she wrote, will help her to be presented to society. It is a notch in her belt. She is in a reverie, high and singing. She feels my presence; on our way here we have connected. Skin-to-skin, we communicate telepathically, each feels the other’s senses.

I want to make it absolutely clear to Elizabeth that I’m here, she needs to see me and so I appear as I am, as I commune with Catherine as she sits for her portrait. Together we arrange ourselves in an attractive and clever pose for the painting—clever because it belies our skin connection – and yet… one of my suckers stands in for Catherine’s third eye; truly it melds with her inner sight. I settle into the pose; my tentacles turn brighter blue and my whole body reflects and magnifies the colors in the portrait – the blue of Catherine’s eyes and blue bows on her white dress, and the green, green velvet of the couch. Together we create an image for the reverie of life. Elizabeth layers on cobalt and Prussian blues until they coalesce into a deep dark background. Elizabeth in another time – call her by her name, Andrea -- conveys a metaphor as she layers rich colors that together conjoin to black, and the colors show her that out of this intricate void comes…the possibility of manifesting desires.

Study from Wild Mare’s Comet Eye Spirals into Lucrezia Crivelli’s Dream to Absolve her of Mistress Guilt in the Face of Courtly Politics

chalk pastel, watercolor and graphite on paper

18 x 24 inches

2023

On the first night, comets streak in the blue-black sky. I gallop upon them. To stay on course, I jump from celestial tail to tail. Lucrezia sees their reflections in my eyes as she looks up from her bed, from its Castle, wrapped in junipered grove. She sees me as if a dream, at first miniscule. I zig (growing closer) zag (growing larger) down to land in her mind’s eye. She is sparked awake.

When Lucrezia sits up, dawn is waiting. She reaches for that quill by her bed, the one she used to write Ludovico about her pregnancy; a letter of good news from his kept mistress. Now, she writes of our meeting as a dream. Her nausea turns into a twinge of butterflies. She feels she’s grown an arm’s length in each direction. Less preoccupied with the duke and his fickle attentions, she’s energized: could we, she and I, meet in waking life?

The following night, standing atop a precipice between the garden and forest ravine, she’s scouring the sky. Her dark mane of hair caught up in a net is the same iron-black as mine. Both are obscured by night. Mine is blown in gusts so wildly that it frames both our faces. She catches the reflection of yesterday’s comets in my eyes. She more than I, is the one chomping at the bit to jump realities. In an answer to her desire, I reiterate this meeting in her dream. She lives and dreams the same story. One night’s touch expands her in all directions.

The next evening, she holds out a strong, manicured hand. I snort upon it inhaling the scent of pine. She’d been holding some needles she’d chosen from the forest floor as she looked for me. I breathe in all of her - nervous, excited, and astronomical. The size of her spirit is also a smell, the same size as mine. I lean down and she mounts my back, she swings her legs over and grips my sides tight; this lady this night is not for sidesaddle. We are one and running.

Study from Aurora Imbued Mother Bear Shepherds Maria de Medici’s Young Transition

chalk pastel, watercolor and graphite on paper

18 x 24 inches

2023

I, polar bear, am laying on a white snowy plain. If you look closely in the clear night you’ll see a semi-circle line-up of us. I offer cuddles for Maria who died young, to her spirit self. She is straddling three places at once which is why she needs our assistance, to complete three overlapping transitions. Maria still needs some guidance in her transition from life to death and then perhaps back into life again. For this last step, she will need the most guidance. There, in the last transitional realm, there is a relative soon-ness within the experience of time. It will be maybe 60 – 100 years in human-measured time.

I stand on hind legs. I can see in Maria’s spellbound eyes, that my enormity is breathtaking and my power which mirrors her own, is shocking to her. Yet, she trusts me because she perceives gentleness in my face and gestures. I show her that I will mother her through this dark, and there is light within it.

This night is a full, deep, icy cold which contrasts to the colors of the aurora lights which start to appear behind us. The colors feel warm (comfortable, vibrant, clear, full of motion) and are enormous in the volume of their hues, enormous like us. In their warmth they are also crisp; intense and wispy at their edges which are made visible by their proximity to some sharply shimmering stars, loitering in the black night.

When each bear steps forward, one vibrant color in the sky – magenta, green, and blue pastels – move their shadows through a band of their light, like quickly moving keys on piano keyboard in the sky. Then, the color shimmies through the bear’s back and materializes into a cone of soft-serve ice cream in its paw. Surrounding Maria on three sides, each bear offers her a different colored flavor. The ice cream is for her to enjoy, to savor the multitudinous experiences – even from a short life - before she fully transitions. In sampling the flavors, she has a condensed burst of the feeling of her life, in her heart, to help leave behind sorrow and regret.

The bears in the line-up are offering protection, courage, fluff and cuddles. Maria’s dress changes color like the aurora does; she is reflecting back to the bears that she is receiving their gifts through the light and ice cream. She has transitioned into death at least enough so that she communicates intuitively, through color and images. Verbal language is not readily available to her. In life, she was quick-witted, articulate in Italian and Greek. Though now, she is eager to release that aspect of her identity and navigate this transition, to not be in limbo anymore. Maria only lived for 17 years, and after being in limbo since 1557, risking the unknown is worth it to move through to the next phase of her existence.

Chins and Noses

Pastel, Charcoal, and Graphite on Paper

19 x 25 in

2012

DaVinci's Lady's Ermine Segesta

Chalk Pastel, Graphite, and Water color on Paper

16 x 12 in

2015

Lionfish Assumes Prickles for Dutchess

pastel and graphite on paper

8 x 5 inches

2019

Volcano Hawk Blue Whale

Chalk Pastel and Watercolor on Paper

19 x 25 inches

2015

Eels and Folds

Pastel, Charcoal, and Graphite on Paper

11 x 14 in

2011

Third-Eye Inspired Problem-Solving Sea Otter-Antea Time Travels Making Use of her Dress's Decorative pattern as Telescope; they See past and Future as One Relying on Sea-Otter's Warm Fur and Wit Together with Antea's Hard-Won Character Assessing Abilities in their Travels

Pastel, Graphite, and Metallic paper on Paper

34 x 42 inches

2015

Golden Eagle Root Line

Chalk Pastel and Graphite on Paper

34 x 42 in

2016

Paws and Feet

Pastel, Charcoal, and Graphite on Paper

19 x 25 in

2011

Pirate-Eyed, Horned-Owled Elizabeth Vigee Le Brun, Portaitist for Marie Antionette, Portraying Herself, Inspired by Rubens, as Racily Open-Mouthed, Imbued with the Power of her Prey, Bluejay and Hare, Whom she/Owl has Consumed so she May Rise in the Night Sky for a Magical Flight and Better View of Future Prey

Pastel and Metallic Paper on Paper

34 x 42 inches

2015

Eyes and Knee

Pastel, Charcoal, and Graphite on Paper

14 x 11 in

2011

Cassat Hat My Blue Whale

Chalk Pastel on Paper

34 x 43 in

2015

Noses and Flowers; Teeth and Pearls

Pastel, Charcoal, and Graphite on Paper

19 x 25 in

2011

Dance: Teeth-Banner Proudly Displays Vulnerable Courage of Loving Walrus; Lady Keeps Watch for Predators in Slightly Choppy Flow; Affection Ebbs as she Fears Trust Will Betray her; Teeth Correct her Fearful Watch to Maintain Flow in Space In between Banner and X

Pastel and Metallic Paper on Paper

34 x 42 inches

2016

Madame Bonier de la Moson Subsumed by Sunbear's Vocal Chords, Seeks Voice of her Own as she Plays Diana the Huntress as Bear; her Poise Leant to Bear and their Vanity as One, with Bear's Mass, Altruism, and Presence of Mind, she Assumes Warrior Role in Play and in Life

Pastel, graphite and metallic paper on paper

34 x 42 inches

2015

Horn-Veil-Ears Hear Voices of People and Politicians; Baby Elephant and Queen Isabella Share a Pearl Necklace’s Eyes; the Better to Sort and Prioritize Needs of Queen Isabella, her Constituents, and her Higher Purpose; Baby Elephant Nestles in Flame-Castle Folds Assisting in Arrangement of Appropriate Hierarchies According to Sound Waves Known Only to Herself and the Jungle

Pastel and Metallic Paper on Paper

34 x 42 in

2015

Heads and Hands

Pastel, Charcoal, Watercolor, and Graphite on Paper

19 x 25 in

2011

Snout and Bow

Pastel, Charcoal, and Graphite on Paper

19 x 25 in

2011

Head and Horns

Pastel, Charcoal, and Graphite on Paper

19 x 25 in

2011

Wink and Wings

Pastel, Charcoal, and Graphite on Paper

14 x 11 in

2011

Golden Eagle Magnolia Tree Self

Pastel on Paper

34 x 43 in

2015

Alfonsina Marmot Hug

Chalk Pastel and Watercolor on Paper

19 x 25 in

2015

Blue Whale Klimt Chandra

Chalk Pastel on Paper

34 x 43 in

2015

Berlin Father

Pastel and Graphite on Paper

30 x 40 in

2016

Berlin Daughter

Pastel and Graphite on Paper

30 x 40 in

2016

Berlin Mother

Pastel and Graphite on Paper

30 x 40 in

2016

Berlin Bear

Pastel on Paper

30 x 40 in

2016

Berlin Lake

Pastel on Paper

30 x 40 in

2016

Berlin Tempelhof

Pastel on Paper

30 x 40 in

2016

Berlin Tempelhof Flowers

Pastel on Paper

30 x 40 in

2016