Theresa Burkes

Seven Times Ten
reduction woodcut, 16 x 16″ image, 27 x 26″ framed, 2016

Artist Statement

This past year I turned seventy. Seven times ten. According to ancient cultures, seven is the heavenly number, the number that means “many,” a reference to the seven heavenly bodies and the multitude of stars beyond. And ten is simply counted on my fingers. So, seventy is “many,” yet still countable.

How appropriate to be many years old and experience for the first time the Path of Totality, to watch moon gobble sun, casting me and mine under a vast cold dome of blue and black. My life seems very short indeed against the vastness of that dome.