There’s no avoiding it: as soon as I start posting drawings like this and the previous one, some people will evaluate them politically. Am I showing too many images of ___ and not enough of ___? What do I mean by giving attention to ___ instead of ___? Etc.

I can’t say these aren’t political. All I can say is that allowing my heart to spend time with people who have suffered because of this conflict feels like it is the right thing to do. And if anyone is counting beans, they should be aware that I’m not posting everything I’m drawing. Some feel too raw and some are just crappy drawings, but they’re helping my heart stay with the suffering.

Graphite pencil on paper, approx. 7″x5″. Sets of remains brought to Abu Kabir morgue, Tel Aviv, for identification. From a photo by Heidi Levine for the Washington Post (“Israel’s missing: Forensic workers struggle to put names to the dead,” Washington Post, 10/31/23)

With this drawing, I was trying to make every mark a meditation and a reminder to myself that within these white plastic bags are parts of the bodies of people who were recently alive and who died by violence. Every mark a breath, taking in the reality of things we can’t see.