When I first saw him at JKF International Airport he was just arriving from Qingdao, China. His beauty shocked me, perhaps because he came to me a fully formed five year old. Five is the most beautiful age, teetering between baby and boy, between natural innocence and devious charm. Perhaps his beauty was a matter of my own perception, a chromosomic gift given to grandparents as a reward for breeding. Maybe it was just that he was truly gorgeous; a heavenly glow haloing godly perfection. I saw him and I saw in my mind the ugly world he would be living in when he is my age--if the warnings of a catastrophic climate change are true. By then he may be migrating across a hostile landscape searching for food like a starving animal. I saw his beauty and I saw the earth burning at the same time. It was like a kiss and a slap in the face.
Months after his arrival I began painting on an 11 x 8.5 inch masonite board. I was trying to work on a piece until I was completely satisfied. The aching guilt I felt for my part in destroying the earth gradually surfaced as the emotional basis for the piece. The idea that the earth was the womb that formed us came into focus. Burning the womb seemed the most vile betrayal of our species. I wanted fell as horrible about myself as possible. In a state of total misery I turned on the air conditioner and ordered a delivery of food.
Months after his arrival I began painting on an 11 x 8.5 inch masonite board. I was trying to work on a piece until I was completely satisfied. The aching guilt I felt for my part in destroying the earth gradually surfaced as the emotional basis for the piece. The idea that the earth was the womb that formed us came into focus. Burning the womb seemed the most vile betrayal of our species. I wanted fell as horrible about myself as possible. In a state of total misery I turned on the air conditioner and ordered a delivery of food.
Buried beneath the crust of an uninhabitable earth will be the compressed layer of the extinct human species, from the space explorers to the first primitive birth, flattened like a page in a book. Such is the prediction of the coming Climate apocalypse and I am the murderer watching my grandson walking to the execution chamber to pay for my crime. We have burned the womb.
My grandson's name is J. Just the letter J. That is the way his father wanted it. I felt I should honor his existence with the skills that I have, however, a drawing, even a painting, did not seem substantial enough to express his importance to me. I decided to make a sculpture; the latest member of the human species on top of the pile. A kind of time sandwich.
I sculpted my grandson with plans to destroy the effigy. A performance imitating the agony of your future for myself. Only I was not destroying you, I was destroying my creative effort. However, I am a lier. I photographed the different stages. Destroying my creation and photographing the process means I did not destroy it at all. Posting them as I am now means I do not have what it takes to accept the consequences of my life, to accept my own anonymity, to accept the pain. As far as I can tell none of us are. I did feel a chill as the scraping began. I achieved that much at least. It happened quickly. An afternoon's work. Then, I lit a butane torch, adjusted the flame to its hottest blue and began burning.
After the woman was burned to ash I burned the hard wood she was built on. What is left has been hanging on our living room wall ever since barely noticed. In the position where her womb had been, I had carved a fetus. I covered it with a gold wax which makes it too shiny and I will most likely torch it back to its original condition.