DIED FOR OUR SINS
Japanese-method woodblock (moku hanga)
Image size: 10.25" x 17" (26 x 43 cm)
Paper size: 12.5" x 19" (63.5 x 98 cm)
Paper: Nishinouchi
Made with 3 shina plywood blocks, 5 color layers
Edition: 12
__________________________________
I have no more words about this print. If you want to know some of the background, you can see previous posts about the murder of my friend Joe or about the things I discovered in researching other murders of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people.
I'll leave you with a poem for Matthew Shepard written by Karen Bashkirew. I became familiar with this poem through an album by Suzzy and Maggie Roche called Zero Church.
Sounds
They say the sounds we make
will travel through space
forever--
through our spinning solar system,
through the wheeling disc of our galaxy,
through what we imagine our universe to be,
we can't begin to imagine.
They say we cannot call a sound back,
cannot erase a sound,
can't catch it up and change it,
no matter how many hymns and prayers
we send chasing after it.
A sound goes on and on and on.
Can you imagine the sounds he made,
how they must have echoed in the clear
Wyoming air
Can you imagine the sounds they made,
pistol whipping, shattering his skull
Can you imagine the sounds he made
as he hung, tied to a fence, broken and bleeding,
through the bitter night, and the whole next day
Can you imagine the sounds she made
when she heard what they did to her child
These sounds
are streaking through space forever.
These sounds
are shattering stars.
These sounds
will shatter
brightness forever
we can't begin to imagine.
A sound goes on and on and on...
by Karen Bashkirew