The Alphabet:  In the 1980’s when the plague of AIDS roared onto the scene, the most prominent artworks addressing the issue were the AIDS quilts. The Alphabet was my reaction to the AIDS crisis as an attempt to present images that looked head-on at the fact that death was in our midst, striking down so many before their time, in a torturous, wasting, painful disease. This was not a pretty picture, and certainly not a cuddly quilt. The growing and frightening tragic absurdity of so many newly dead, was looked at through the catharsis of the lens of my work. My first work on the Alphabet began as drawn and painted images interspersed with collages of newspaper clippings. As the images materialized, however, I realized that they must be intaglio etchings instead of paintings, drawings, or collages. 

The Alphabet is a suite of twenty-eight intaglio etchings, a 21st century dialogue with the intaglio works of Francisco Goya’s "Los Caprichos" (c. 1799) and Otto Dix’s "Der Krieg" (c. 1924). The darkness of our present era has been examined, looking at how death lurks behind our every move and motive, in spite of all our modern conveniences. The work was created initially in response to the AIDS epidemic, but it has subsequently evolved into an examination of the proliferation of premature death in our current time and the cruel absurdities of the modern world

Lowercase Alphabet

28 prints
1 Title plate: Image 8 x 6” paper 11 x 10”
26 A-Z plates: Image 5 x 4” paper 11 x 10”
1 End plate: Image 4.38 x 7.75” paper 11 x 10”
Intaglio Print on Somerset Satin Paper

Uppercase Alphabet

28 prints
1 “A” Title plate: Image 10 x 8” paper 14 x 11”
27 B-Z (2 each of B and C): Image 5 x 4” paper 11 x 10”; except: B2, F, K, M, Q, R, U, W, X & Z: Image 8 x 6” paper 11 x 10”
Intaglio Print on Somerset Cream Paper

Numbers

11 prints
1 Title plate: Image 10 x 8” paper 14 x 11”
10 plates 0 – 9: Image 5 x 4” paper 11 x 10”
Intaglio Print on Somerset Satin Paper