Portfolio > City Lights Kite and Memorial Kites

I am currently working on a series of "Memorial Kites" of various designs, inspired by Japanese kites, that support images of loved ones who have died. It’s a way for me to honor the dead, and emblematically lift them into the sky. In so doing, I let go of my attachment, even as I continue to hold fast the string of love and kindness that bonded us.

Before I came upon this idea I was working with the theme "looking for lightness." The photograph on this kite was taken in 2013 looking up the staircase to the poetry section of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, birthplace of the Beat poetry movement. It was accidentally destroyed while hanging in a gallery in 2014. Documentation of its maiden voyage can be accessed via the "Links" page of this website. The artwork now exists as a 4x5 inch silver gelatin contact print.