"Meanings of Death" Final Project (Spring 2007)

My lone A+ at Kenyon was hard earned, and strangely enough, it was in a class all about death.  Meanings of Death with Professor Royal Rhodes was among the most useful courses I've ever taken since it covered cultural perceptions of death over virtually all of Western history (and a little Eastern as well).  This is one of those courses that I keep in my back pocket and refer to constantly in pastoral situations.  Everyone considering the pastorate should be required to take a course like this!

Admittedly, the course was a little rough at first since I have some significant family deaths in my history.  Also, the summer before, I had worked in a veterinary clinic, meaning that I periodically got a little dose of death when we had to put down an animal (something that was always commemorated with about half an hour of silence around the whole clinic).  Prof. Rhodes's class was crucial in helping me process many of these experiences while also preparing me to talk more openly about the end of life and the issues surrounding it.  (Again, every pastor needs this!)

For my final project, under Prof. Rhodes's supervision, I assembled a pantheon of death deities from all the various cultures we had discussed.  I started with a stenciled Grim Reaper influenced by Christian iconography (particularly the Day of the Dead).  I wanted a character that was menacing and yet engaging.  The spiral patterns and ankh on his robes are all symbolic life imagery, which is either ironic or appropriate (depending on how you view death).  The eyes involved a lot of very close-up spraypaint work, while much of the rest was done from a distance to produce the cloudy effects of the piece.  This would serve as the background on which I would mount my pantheon.

This is Yama, a death deity revered in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism who appears in the Katha Upanishad and other historic religious literature.  I opted to use a Tibetan rendition of Yama that I found in my research.  This drawing (like all the others mounted on the piece) is done in pencil and charcoal.  On a more lighthearted note, a few friends have compared this drawing to Bowser from the Super Mario franchise.

Anubis is the Egyptian god of death, embalming, and mummification who famously weighs the hearts of the deceased against a feather in the afterlife.  His head is that of a jackal, as these were animals associated with burial grounds.  I tried to make the colors on Anubis as flat as possible to match the distinct ancient Egyptian style.

The figure on the left is the Azrael, the Angel of Death in Islam, but the flaming sword in his right hand was inspired by angelic imagery in the Old Testament.  The figure on the right is Hermes/Mercury who, in addition to being the Greek messenger god, was also responsible for leading souls to the underworld.

The figure on the left is the Hindu goddess Kali, a consort of Shiva, who has been described in more modern poetry as being like "the darkness between the stars."  She is certainly one of the more intimidating figures!  On the right is the ever fashionable Baron Samedi, the ever-fashionable Voodoo death deity also associated with crossroads.

The Greek god Hades is often described as having a "helmet of invisibility," but this is never depicted in artwork.  I decided to go for it though.  Hades carries a cornucopia (as he is also a god of wealth), and his scepter sports an eagle.  The scepter was intentionally drawn to resemble a two-pronged fork, as this is also a symbol associated with Hades.

While Hades is the god of the Underworld, the proper death deity is Thanatos (pictured at right), who is the twin brother of Hypnos, the god of sleep.  I wanted to leave Thanatos's eyes blank so that he would look as statue-like as possible, suggesting a sort of preservation in death.  Contrasting this, a butterfly is perched on his finger to symbolize rebirth.  (Also, though I don't have an individual shot of her, the final project also featured the character of Lady Death from Marvel Comics positioned to the right of Thanatos.)

I openly admit that my version of Charon (the ferryman to the Underworld in Greek mythology) is completely ripped off from the Led Zeppelin "Stairway to Heaven" poster.

Hel is the Norse death deity, and I developed a fascination with her while working on this project.  Along with Fenrir the wolf and Jormungandr the Midgard Serpent, Hel is one of the three children of Loki whom Odin found despicable and threw down from Asgard.  She landed in the realm of the dead (which shares her name) and governs over that land.  I felt tremendous pity for her since she is supposed to be half-human and half-corpse, so I tried to make the human half as sweet and attractive as possible, using the face of actress Bryce Dallas Howard as a model.  She would later be a main character in 3-Hour Tour, my attempt at a graphic novel.

 The deity on the far right is Osiris, an Egyptian god who was killed by his rival Set and sent down to the underworld.  He was the first figure in Egyptian mythology to go through mummification in a sort of resurrection ceremony conducted by his wife Isis, and he eventually fathered Horus, who was able to subdue Set.  Over Osiris's head is an owl, a common symbol of death that is also associated with the Mesopotamian death goddess Ereshkigal.


So yeah, that's my pantheon of death deities.  The project remained in Prof. Rhodes's office for quite a long time, and he relayed several stories to me about people being either profoundly comforted or profoundly unsettled by its presence.  Invariably though, anyone looking at the piece would say something along the lines of, "If I were to die, I think I'd want to be greeted by ___________."  I think the characters we gravitate toward in this piece can tell us a lot about ourselves and our views of death, so feel free to spend some time looking over it, and if you want to talk about it further, shoot me an email.