The Dead Fathers Show

The original show idea centered around Dead Fathers.

This year is the 20th anniversary of my father's passing from pancreatic cancer. I miss him very much. I wanted to recognize this anniversary in some profound way. I already printed out a six-foot long portrait of my father on silk organza. The organza will be cut into vertical strips to move with the wind, reflecting how memory forms, changes, and reforms.

My friend and fellow ceramic artist, John Badik, lost his father when he was only seven. Marlene Krum Sanders, another friend and ceramist, also has a dead father. He appears thematically in her sculptures as "The Man in the Hat." So I thought we three could do a show on memory and loss.

So that is how the idea for the show started. As discussions progressed with Bill Walsh, co-owner of the Outside in Piermont, the show grew organically beyond us three building altars to our dead fathers. The central themes of mortality and memory are powerful emotional triggers. Ceremonies and rituals for the dead are part of every culture and are a vital part of human psychology and spirituality. Four more highly accomplished artists were invited to participate, bringing our number to seven. Their work also deals with life, death, transformation, and remembrance.

When someone close to us dies, we long to keep contact. We create personal altars, write letters, burn offerings, talk to them, light candles on anniversaries. We may feel respect, love, grief, anger or pain. In whatever way we remember, by that act, they become, once again, an important part of our lives.