Me in Amber

Just finished Genesis this a.m. and the end of the lives of two great men, Israel and Joseph.  Both die.  We all are appointed to die.  Great mystery death.  As an artist I find myself contemplating death a lot.  Not mine but death in general.  My latest body of work deals with mortality and immortality.  I take 10,000 samples of my DNA on toothpicks, q-tips etc. and imbed them in amber and encase the whole thing in resin.  By doing this I am preserving myself with the idea being that at some point technology will advance to the point that I can be “reborn”, ie: “Jurassic Park”.  The concept for the work is how humans are consumed with their own immortality.  We diet, exercise, use vast amounts of cosmetics and ingest mountains of vitamins, minerals and prescription drugs, all on the premise that we might cheat death, if not forever, at least for a few years.  We don’t like to think about death so we have become enamored with life.  With all this effort to achieve immortality I thought it would be good to do work about it.  To draw attention to a truth about life and death.  

Here are two truths I believe most relevant.  One, everyone’s physical body will die.  Let’s be straightforward.  Joseph was embalmed.  Why?  Because, if left alone after death he as well as us all would just rot.  Our bodies would bloat, burst open and smell, to quote my Granny, “To high heaven.”  If left completely alone animals and insects would consume what was once our cherished selves but would now be a carcass.  Enough of the blunt. 

The second great truth, I believe, is that we are all very truly immortal.  What makes me me and you you lives forever.  Our physical bodies are just the vehicles by which our real selves, our sprit and soul, get hauled around. Our physical bodies give us the ability to be animated on this earth.  I believe that every human from the moment the egg is fertilized, at that exact instant, becomes immortal. That is why I make the work shown here.  To draw our attention to our own immortality.  How do we spend our immortality?  I believe what Christ taught, that we will spend eternity in one of two ways, with God or without Him.  This belief is exactly why I make the art I make and why I write this blog.  To express this hope.  The hope that I have only found in Christ.  I was reminded of this fact this morning when I read in Genesis 49:33 about the death of another physical body, Jacob.  It said “he drew his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people”.  The “gathered to his people” part was what I was drawn to.  I believe he truly was gathered up to be together with all his loved ones who had made a conscious decision to believe and to live there with them and God forever.  Now that’s what I call the good news, news worthy of making art about “until the cows (or in this case, the Lee’s) come home.”

"Me in Amber" 10,000 q tips embedded in amber
encased in resin, 4'/1'/8"