This is  Border Crossing (Touch 5), 24″h x 36″w from the Migrations series, in which I explore the archetype of the Hanged Man, with all its tropes of sacrifice, suspension,  and new perceptions.  Migrations are not just the physical ones– we leave one country for another. Or metaphysical– we transition from life to death. Migrations can be the internal journeys our minds make as we scrub the landscapes of our memory.

My family and I were sent to an internment camp for political dissidents when I was a young child. My childhood crush, Toni, would entertain us younger kids in the camp by dancing with a skeleton. He was full of life, and comic passion as he danced with that skeleton! As a political refugee, the loss of my homeland is a bittersweet caress, and his dance a symbol that haunts me still. It represents the resilience and joie de vivre of the human spirit.