A Too Late Song (For Becky), 2013

Reductive Woodcut with Stencils, 21 3/4"x18" (framed)

Courtesy of the Artist

This print is a meditation on the effect of song, and how its meaning and impact can change depending on many things - the singer, the character of the song, its volume, melody and rhythms, its lyric and history. Any of these elements combined with the circumstances of the listener and what he or she hears and feels will create the song's personal meaning in the moment it is heard.

The four birds in A Too Late Song together suggest the alternate undertones of Becky's song: a large darker bird dominates the chorus; above it a smaller warbler seems capable of a sweeter voice. The bird that is trapped in a cup offers a song that can't be heard. And the bird that emerges from the parchment-yellow field offers a pale memory of another singer's song. A vignette of a couple waving goodbye offers a potential clue to the meaning of the song.

Background - shortly before she died, my elderly mother (Becky), who had earlier lost much of her vision, was hospitalized in severe pain. As we looked for distractions for her, my sister and I tried to sooth her discomfort with music. A tape of arias and romantic songs by the Italian tenor, Andrea Bocelli, captured her attention. When told that Bocelli was blind, the singer's lyricism and knowledge of his dark world moved my mother through her worst moments. Her nurses remarked that hearing is the last sense we retain when all else is lost."

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