Bucrania 1-12, 2002-3, is a suite of digital constructions printed as archival digital prints in which I am tracing the process of regeneration. The goddess Artemis is thought to be ruled by the moon and was called Melissa of Ephesus. The bull too belongs to the moon. Both the bull and the goddess Artemis belong to the moon and to the bees. Souls are bees and Melissa draws souls down to be born. Good souls can be reincarnated in bees. It is said that if you plant a bull’s head (a bucranium) in the ground in the spring, when the sun is in Taurus, a swarm of bees will issue forth from the horns. The notion is that the spirit of the bull passes into the life of the bees and the bees are thus “bull begotten.”

The series imagines this movement of the soul as an almost physical form in the bucranium, as juices and bodily fluids, and as vapors disappearing out to the stars returning to an etheric state. The stardust and the clusters of rings act as references to the bees and the hive. As there is “life in death,” the bees represent resurrection and regeneration.