Description
The tradition of the Memento Mori—a reminder that we all will one day die—goes way back to classical antiquity, and has had a long traditional in European Christian tradition, perhaps especially in the Medieval and Renaissance periods. This version reminds us none of us know how much time we have left, perhaps a point that has come a little closer to a lot of us in the past two years. Given this reminder, what is it we want to do with whatever time you have? A reminder of death can encourage celebrating life.
Because of the metallic inks used, and the fine detail in the ornaments in the skull, these prints have a way of shifting how they look depending on the light, sometimes really jumping out, sometimes almost a ghostly presence on the page. The gold skull with the white lettering on dark grey paper in particular, can have very different looks in different lighting and at different angles, with sometimes either the skull or the lettering almost fading away, and other times they both leap off the page.
The skull is printed entirely from carefully arranged type ornaments, possibly one of my most complex pieces of typesetting to date, requiring careful selection of ornaments to shape the curves and shapes of a human skull and its details, and then careful math to make sure all of the pieces fit smoothly together.
8×10 print, with gold or silver metallic ink for the skull and white or black text, printed on dark grey 100% recycled French Paper 80# card stock or 100% cotton bright white 118# card stock.