The birth of LIL DEATH & the Dia de los Muertos series

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Early summer morning.  Dark and raining.  Leaving city for country.  Right outside our Manhattan brownstone floating in a puddle he appeared. A backpack iron-on? A paste-in escaped from a child’s coloring book? All black and white.  Cartoon foot bone connected to cartoon leg bone, leg bone connected to hip bone, hip bone connected to backbone, backbone connected to neck bone, neck bone connected to head bone.  “Dem bones, dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones.  Now hear the word of the Lord.”  Weirdly ringing in my childhood memory’s ears.

 

His out-stretched arms promising a cute cuddle.  His friendly smiling skull, lightbulb like, as far removed from the Indian and Japanese horrific portrayals of the grim reaper as a firecracker from the atom bomb or a blood blister from Armageddon. He seemed to promise a happy ending.  So I put him in my jacket pocket,

for the train ride home.

 

Shortly after, had the idea to showcase him as a traveling companion/amanuensis among everyday things and a range of orchestrated ‘landscapes.’  Just as in Roman times, when, in royal chariot, the conquering emperor rode into/over the vanquished/leveled city, his fool jester rode with him shaking a skull on a spike to humble and remind The Emperor that ALL of this too shall pass.

 

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