Day of the Dead Mural for Mom
One of my oldest friends in Tulsa, Susanne Barnard, asked me if I wanted to do a mural at the Living Arts gallery in downtown Tulsa as part of their Day of the Dead celebration– I thought it would be fun and meaningful to do one about my mother, Sara Lynn Crank Brown, and invite my younger sister Celia to do it with me– it was great to go through old photos and remember mom, share some funny times and sad times too. We still miss her greatly, but the pain isn’t so sharp after seven years. In other words, it was the right time to do it.
On the mural I did of mom rising up out of her wheelchair (Celia said “She always hated that thing.”) and into the light, I put the words of a family song that we sing during family reunions (at least I think we still do, I haven’t been back since she died.):
I know it’s true, it’s oft time said
That when you’re dead, you’re long time dead
So I’m going to live in high ’til I die!
The song is actually about a black man who, when faced with having to live a life preparing for heaven or one that samples the secular joys of earth, decides in one huge rousing chorus that life is meant to be lived big, heaven be damned. My interpretation is slightly different from that: with these words I am thanking mom for encouraging me to live life as though we only have the chance this once, and from that point, all bets are off. No use in waiting for an uncertain future when it is all here now.
In addition to the photos and mural, my former wife Jenny Hart, who absolutely adored our mother, agreed to let us use the memorial embroidery that she gave to Celia shortly after mom died.
My second cousin Greg Gray took this fantastic photo of a mother with child in baby carriage surveying the installation- birth and death come full circle in a single moment– many thanks Greg.
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:32 pm
i love your steelo dude.