“Sleep”

Sleep
2003
Materials: Oil and Gold Leaf on Wood
60″ x 21″

This gold leaf carving was built on memories of a mother’s comfort. As a child, Fernie would lay under the piano bench, listening to his mom play. The safety he felt there allowed his imagination to run free. His mother Maria  would candidly joke that when she died she wanted to be buried naked in the soil, without makeup and adornment, in order to let the worms and bugs eat her as quickly as possible. Due to circumstances, his mother and father were buried in gold and silver colored coffins. The wooden bench form, with wormlike carvings layered in gold leaf, portrays the irony of not being able to fulfill those wishes.

Collection of Angela and Steve Camp