INFERNO, Canto XVIII, illustration 1

Title: The border that remains between the well-pit

and the great cliff forms an enormous circle,

and ten descending troughs are cut in it,

offering a general prospect like the ground

that lies around one of those ancient castles

whose walls are girded many times around

by concentric moats. And just as, from the portal,

the castle's bridges run from moat to moat

to the last bank; so from the great rock wall

across the embankments and the ditches, high

and narrow cliffs run to the central well,

which cuts and gathers them like radii.

8.5 x 11.25 inches
acrylic paint, collage, and ink on found paper
September 23, 2021

INFERNO, Canto XVII, illustration 4

Title: …I leaned my head out and stared into Hell.

I trembled again at the prospect of dismounting

and cowered in on myself, for I saw fires

on every hand, and I heard a long lamenting.

10 x 7.125 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
September 22, 2021

INFERNO, Canto XVII, illustration 3

Title: Slowly, slowly he swims on through space,

wheels and descends, but I can sense it only

by the way the wind blows upward past my face.

14.75 x 10.75 inches
acrylic paint, collage, and ink on found paper
September 19, 2021

INFERNO, Canto XVII, illustration 2

Title: I examined several faces there among

that sooty throng, and I saw none I knew;

but I observed that from each neck there hung

an enormous purse, each marked with its own beast

and its own colors like a coat of arms.

On these their streaming eyes appeared to feast.

11 x 8.25 inches
acrylic paint and collage on found paper
September 17, 2021

INFERNO, Canto XVII, illustration 1

Title: His face was innocent of every guile,

benign and just in feature and expression;

and under it his body was half reptile.

His two great paws were hairy to the armpits;

all his back and breast and both his flanks

were figured with bright knots and subtle circles:

never was such a tapestry of bloom

woven on earth by Tartar or by Turk,

nor by Arachne at her flowering loom.

10.75 x 14.75 inches
acrylic paint and collage on found paper
September 14, 2021

INFERNO, Canto XVI, illustration 4

Title: ...I saw swimming up through that foul air

a shape to astonish the most doughty soul,

a shape like one returning through the sea

from working loose an anchor run afoul

of something on the bottom - so it rose,

its arms spread upward and its feet drawn close.

11 x 8.25 inches
acrylic paint and collage on found paper
September 9, 2021