OUR LADY OF THE FALLEN SOLDIERS OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

"Pray With Us Now, And At The Hour Of Our Death. Amen"

When ordinary people become artists, an important thing happens. Images once caught in the formality of icons transcend the past, the rules, the expected, and become living statements of the present.

Here, in Hollywood Memorial Cemetery, a shrine calls out to curious passersby that Pieta seeks entry into the hearts and minds, and perhaps the souls of the living. The Mother of Jesus becomes the Mother of all humankind. Here Mary holds the corpse of Her Son and cries out to revelers and reverent alike, that our children and the children of Iraq and Afghanistan live or die as the consequence of commitment to secure the blessings of peace.

Photograph taken for The Museum of the San Fernando Valley by Jerry Fecht