“Life Sucks!” It’s a common quote yelled out by many. I think we all may have felt this one time or another. Sometimes life is really ugly. There are killings; there is homelessness, there is suffering everywhere. Life really does “suck!” Only I can make it better for me because no one else will. So, I create my own world. I leave out the ugliness: the killings, homelessness and all the suffering. In my world, life doesn’t “suck.”

To portray this, I use plants and people. They are very much alike. We have the same essential needs: food, water, light and air. We are created. We go through a life cycle. We are very much connected. But there is no ugliness in plants. Then there is death. Death is natural. There is no mourning in death of a plant but we mourn the death of human lives and one of the images of death is the skeleton or bones. Skeleton is cold, empty and lifeless. It is an eerie image. But why should it be? Why should death be scary? Death is a natural cycle of human life that our great maker created. I keep life eternal by changing the image of bones as I marry it with plants. I take the fear associated with bones and create the beauty of eternal life. The fetus is also used throughout many paintings as it represents the beginning of life, not only in humans, but also in plants as we are connected. Life doesn’t “suck.” Embrace it because life is “great!”