A Tribute...

(As always, please click the image to see it larger.)

Dearest Friends of The Tearoom,

The collage above is the one I have finally finished in tribute to David Bowie.  

I was so very shocked and saddened to learn of his death very early in the morning on January 10th, shortly after it was announced by the BBC.  

I always admired him and his sense of innovation.  In his career, he constantly re-invented himself. 

As we now know, he was still creating art until only a few days before his death, in spite of being so ill.  As an artist, knowing this affects me greatly.  He leaves us with a tremendous gift of an enormous body of work, hours and hours, days and days of music, endless amounts of video performances, interviews and movies.  In this amazing time of digital information, you can surround yourself with his art and almost forget he is gone.  As I listen to his music and watch him online, one thing occurs to me:  To my mind, his parting gift to us was raising the bar as an artist, one last time.  He has challenged us all.  What can we do to devote ourselves to our art by spending every moment we can, perhaps even some of our last ones, making our art?  

UPDATE:  Please see my response to a comment by my friend Bill below for a note about something interesting I learned after posting this collage and blog post.