This is an image I tried to create probably a dozen times before it got to this point.
It’s origin is a refrigerator magnet we had when I was a child. The magnet featured a similar mouse, but in addition to flipping the owl off, it was holding a large revolver behind its back and had the words, “That’s confidence” underneath it.
As a kid I always thought of that as a final act of bravery.
More adult introspection and study lead me to Stoicism, and the notion that simply facing your death was as brave if not braver than fighting it. This is not to support giving up on life, as much as it is an embracing what comes, ‘amor fati’ if you will.
24×18 gouache on 140 lb wc paper
A print of this piece is available <HERE>
