Angel Makers

A few autumns ago, in Copenhagen,  I encountered my first Angel Maker. Unaware of what an Angel Maker was, I met her sister shortly after, in Stockholm. The sister appears, painted on a wooden panel, in the Medeltidsmuseet, the Museum of Medieval Stockholm. It is displayed in a reconstructed medieval village with, among other attractions, a main square, a knight on horseback, a church, a gallows and a display of common crimes and punishments of the Middle Ages. These two angel makers are separated in time by several hundred years, but what they share in common is expressed in the Swedish word, Änglamakerska, that is, one who has made an angel out of a child by returning it to heaven, sometimes in gruesome ways.

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Three Little Buddhas

Twilight in the green foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Beads of rain trickle down the windows of the studio. An iron-colored sky fades into a cold night. It’s the middle of the month of May, but winter has returned. So why does it feel like the world is on fire?

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The Witnesses

In 1817, in a letter to a friend, John Keats wrote, ” I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affections and the truth of Imagination.” Two hundred and two years later, in this afflicted world–our world–his two affirmations continue to offer insight, and hope.

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