A Muder of V's or Stand By Your (Wo)man

My girlfriend's mom died of cancer last year. This year she (Tyler Clark Burke) created a series of work dealing with the unfortunate event.

I made this show for my mom Valerie who died suddenly a year ago. She actually hated her name and went by Val, not Valerie.

My aunt was on vacation in Florida and she went to a psychic in Cassadaga, a community known for its psychics. It is in the middle of Florida, not near the ocean, so if I were to claim an area for its psychic qualities, I would choose near the water. I mean, if I were making things up, I would choose near the water and maybe even a place on an island. Hopeful skeptics like me find these sorts of things confusing, but the woman who did my aunt's reading (I type the word reading with a cringe, my fingers cringe somehow) said crazy things. Crazy true things. She also asked my aunt if she had been seeing a lot of crows, which was an incredible question since my aunt lives in Vermont and was literally inundated with tonnes of crows. Maybe even a crow problem. The psychic told my aunt that my mom Val was sending these birds to Pam (my aunt), I think to make peace, and that the crows were very good. Not dark.

I've been looking for crows everywhere for almost a year, even if the idea scared me a bit.

I've been a bit obsessed with birds, which is funny also because my mom hated her name and--strangely--birds (long story, I presume). Regardless, I just made tonnes of birds, tonnes of crows, murders of crows, and I hung them all up yesterday.

This morning, hung over, weary from the week and wary of today, I saw a black shape in my window. I tried to figure out what it was, if it was on the plant or in the tree outside, and it was a bird. A crow. I think it was a crow. It was an all black bird and I've been drawing many. There were no other colours or markings. I went to get my camera and it flew away.