Love in the Time of…
Mixed media on colored recycled paper
16.5”x 11.75”
2020

As the earth and all upon it heats up, I am thinking about how one touches LOVE and HOPE. Sexual unity, as depicted in Buddhist iconography, is the primordial union of wisdom and compassion. I have drawn Samantabhadra and his consort Yab-Yum into the street where they solidly occupy the center of the composition. Their coital embrace continues even as they are held back by crime scene tape (attached to orange traffic cones). Coronas fill the night sky, water flows in cascades, and slogans of hope meet the fire down below! Fire and water intermingle throughout.

The title of James Baldwin’s 1963 book, “The Fire Next Time,” was a Biblical reference recalling God’s warning to the people of Noah’s time. Once the flood waters have receded, the next destruction will come from fire.

With so much death around me, I needed an erotic image of love that anchors us here and now!