my first blog post ever...no pressure

I have to start with what has to be the most special painting I've done.  There actually ended up being 2 pieces involved in the commission.  Anyway, here are the opening lines from an email I received a while back:  

"Ok.  This may be the strangest email you have ever gotten.  And it may seem a tad creepy but I am serious..."

What followed was a request to incorporate cremation ashes into an encaustic painting.  This woman's brother loved to fly-fish in Colorado and most of his ashes were already scattered along the Poudre River.  With the remaining remains, she wanted something more tangible; something that captured his spirit.  A painting of his favorite place.  In fact, when she ran the idea by her sister, she requested a painting as well and the idea was to eventually leave both paintings to each of their brother's 2 daughters (hope you haven't lost me on the family tree...)

At first I thought, no way.  
This is too much responsibility.  
What if I mess it up ... I can't just scrape away and throw away the wax like I usually do when I need to make a change.  This time they would contain human remains.  
Too precious.  
And what if I spilled some?!  There were sure to be dustings in my work area that I couldn't recover.  

But my second thought was, how cool.  What an incredible and unique way to honor someone's memory.

So I said yes.

And here is one of the pieces....