A few weeks ago I featured the art of Landis Blair — see that entry here.
Landis does a lot of very intricate pieces but he can also do quirky whimsy-driven pieces on the fly. To my delight, he has agreed to collaborate with the Order on a project called Deathly Doodles (insert unnecessarily dramatic music here).
Deathly Doodles will involve ANY word or phrase relating to death as suggested by you the readers. Landis will take that word or phrase and draw an amusing drawing. I will then do a write-up with a fun Ask a Morticianly-like fact.
As a sample, I suggested Formaldehyde Grey as my word.
Formaldehyde is a chemical commonly used in embalming a dead body. Formaldehyde Grey results when the hemoglobin in your blood reacts with the embalming fluid and the body takes on a dull grey color. That’s why embalmers add pinky/red-colored chemicals to the mix to give the body a “natural” appearance. Too much pink chemical and the body looks like a salmon, too little and the body keeps the grey hue.
Like Oscar Wilde’s antihero Dorian Gray, we may try to maintain beauty while we live, but our future lies as a potential grey corpse on the embalmer’s table.
Please submit your deathly words and phrases and perhaps dear Landis shall select you to immortalize through doodles!