Here is the transition from abstract to angel. The gouache study on black paper, there are dozens of these although this is the last of the series, was done in preparation for the painting below. In between, I attended a Solstice sunrise Native American drumming ceremony in the courtyard between the two World Trade Center towers. I had just lost yet another friend to AIDS and found the ceremony quite moving. Later, listening to a tape of the drummers as I began the new egg tempera panel, I noticed a howling face in it. This was my first Archetypal Angel, and I intended to do one for every friend I lost to the virus.