Last spring I was offered an opportunity to show at a gallery here in Providence RI and I decided to make a series of landscape prints. One of the prints in that landscape series was this image of Sandy Hook Elementary School where 20 children and 6 adults were gunned down in 2012.
While I was making this print I read an article in the NY Times about the investigators who worked the Sandy Hook crime scene and their experiences while handling the children's belongings. I glanced at the old teddy bear from my childhood who now lives in my studio and suddenly felt the import of this stuffed animal — the fact that it is over a half century old and that I have had the great good fortune of growing to adulthood. I suddenly felt that this stuffed bear, Tedward, could be seen as a "guardian" and I made a woodblock portrait of him in one weekend.
When I posted Tedward on Instagram the response was instantaneous and positive, and I realized that I had struck a nerve. I put out a call to my Instagram followers for photos of Childhood Guardians and I received nearly 50 submissions. I don't think I'll be able to produce portraits of them all, but I'll definitely do 20 of them in honor of the 20 children who were murdered at Sandy Hook. 💔
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