Queen of the Night

 Twelve intimate works created in the quiet aftermath of loss—
a pilgrimage through darkness toward light.

Artist Statement

After the dog pack attack in the spring of 2015, both my body and the studio carried a cranky, unfamiliar awkwardness. A kind of detachment.

The following spring, my dearest friend Cliff gently championed my return to the studio. I would arrive at dawn to find smoke rising from the chimney and his tracks pressed into the snow. The fire he built crackled encouragement. The warmth felt like a heartfelt hug.

My body began to strengthen.
My mother’s body began to weaken.

Cliff died.

Numbness settled into bones already shaken by trauma. Grief moved in, loud and unrelenting even as I stretched to meet what was being asked of me. Alzheimer’s unraveled my mother’s mind. I bathed her, dressed her, fed her. She willed herself to live long enough to witness my marriage - a blessing.

The day after my wedding I kept vigil by my mother’s side for nine days and nights until she passed - another blessing.

Two weeks later, I packed the rose-printed sheets that had softened her hospice bed and traveled to my aunt and uncle’s home. There, I cared for my mother’s sister as cancer moved swiftly through her body. I bathed her, dressed her, fed her.

She died on my mother’s birthday.

In the midst of this, a commission for the king of Bhutan offered space, place, and purpose. Bhutan is a country steeped in tradition, color, and kindness…and feral dogs.

Bhutan reshaped me.

The Himalayan seasons were unforgiving. Damp cold settled deep into my bones as I carved outside for long days, chasing the elusive light needed to release images in wood. Feral dogs barked day and night, their presence a daily practice in meeting the lingering trauma of the attack—a challenging gift.

When the project was complete and I returned home, depression draped itself over me like a heavy wool cloak. Beneath its weight, I began again - quietly, tentatively - creating in my studio.

Queen of the Night emerged during this time.

Like the people of Bhutan who pilgrimage to monasteries perched like bird nests on cliffs, each piece in this series is a step in my own pilgrimage toward the light.

(Titles for artworks are quotes from the novel “Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee)