Living with Dying: Grief, Loss, Beauty and Joy
Top: Deathbed Drawings (Uncle Ed, pages 4-5), mixed media, 10" x 7 1/8," 2016
Bottom: Deathbed Drawings (Dad, pages 10-11), mixed media, 11 3/4" x 8," 2019
Amy Sue Axen majored in Fine Art for both her undergraduate and graduate degrees. She worked in the art departments of two magazine publishing companies and an advertising agency, and finished her formal career with over two decades as an art educator in public and private schools.
About Uncle Ed, (pages 4-5) and Dad, (pages 10-11) Amy writes:
I've pretty much lived in my sketchbooks since elementary school. This habit hasn't changed a great deal with the exception of content. Recently, deathbed drawings of aged loved ones have become subject matter. Putting a pen on paper as a goodbye is a simultaneously exploitive and holy act. It's a final, visual hurrah and documented sendoff.