9 panels - finished

Nine 9” x 10” pen & ink and watercolor on paper, 2021

Tribute to 18th Century Spider-Angels on Headstones

I spent the day in Green-Wood Cemetery just outside my door in Brooklyn last weekend. I was searching for the headstone of the great Iranian artist Ardeshir Mohassess who died in 2008 (look him up if you like line drawings - he’s amazing). I was about to give up (finding specific graves there is kinda difficult) and then BOOM - there is was. It really stood out from all the other monuments - so rad. **R.I.P.**

A hobby of mine is finding good-bad drawings out in the world (I have a twitter account where I post these: @goodbaddrawings ) and one particular place to find loads of jackpots are 18th century Dutch cemeteries. They're so great - incredible heart-felt skulls and angels (spider angels?) + terrible all at once. I love these to DEATH - so of course I spent a few more days drawing them. I sometimes do that as a kind of meditation. It takes so long to draw this stuff and I'm so steeped in every line and decision the original artist made while carving these headstones 💔

Super bonus! I saw one of the great living American artists having dinner outside at a restaurant on my way back from the cemetery! Gary Panter (at least I’m 85% sure it was him - at a restaurant on Ft Hamilton Pkwy early Saturday evening). I tried to play it cool and not stare as I passed by but that was fucking cool for me 🥰🤓.