Water soluble crayon/pencil and graphite on paper (1990)

Size: w 13″ x h 25″

This is what I wrote in 1990 about this piece:

Like the photographer James Balog who photographed the 15-month-old Atlantic green turtle on its back, I too am “continually mesmerized by this image of delicate sensibility.” Balog tells us in his new book, Survivors: A New Vision of Endangered Wildlife, that the species is on the verge of extinction following systematic exploitation for meat, eggs, and oil. This picture is about vulnerability, and also about the awareness of incalculable suffering which surrounds and drowns each of us like a heavy sea. The turtle yearns to extend herself, to reach beyond her own separateness. The Scythian mirror, a relic from the sixth century BC, is symbolic of her vain, broken effort.