$20
Item#: 2013SYR11
11x17-inches, printed on heavy weight (100-pound) Hammermill cover paper. We package each print with a piece of chipboard in a clear plastic sleeve.
You also receive…
An information page with photos of the artist and poet, and hand-written comments from each.
Medium- and large-format posters are available by custom order. Contact us for details.
Hats glow like halos
Colorful procession climbs
Stairway to heaven.
When I first saw the illustration, I thought “Oh my God, that's a difficult one. What can you think of?” I put it aside and told myself not to bother with it. Then I looked at it again, and I had a flashback to my childhood.
When I was in school, we'd be in Easter processions—Easter is a very big event in my Ukrainian culture—and all the women had their brand new hats. They couldn't wait to wear them on Easter Sunday, so I thought of that and all the women on their way to church.
Pretty much every church I know has a stairway in the front, and I've always thought that the stairway up to church was a “stairway to heaven” where parish “saints” marched in. It all just came to me at once in that second look.
I was asked to illustrate “Church Crowns.” I thought about what church, at its core, is. It's a collection of people who aspire to be good, to be better, and to praise God.
In my case poets were asked to respond to my sketch—a group of women walking up a staircase to church. We do well when we work together—as artists and as people.