Image of the Week: The Death Flower
© Durga Yael Bernhard
The Death Flower is a painted target that I created in 1997 for my boyfriend and hunting partner, Jerry. Jerry was a master hunter, and my mentor for many years. "One shot," he told me again and again. That's what you get, at best, as a bow hunter. You can wait for hours, even days, for a five-second window of opportunity to open – and close again just as fast. If you don't act quickly and place your shot precisely, your animal of prey will be either wounded or gone – or both.
The stakes are also high in hitting a hand-painted target. If the shot isn't perfect, the painting is ruined. This was my Valentine's Day gift to my partner who popped balloons on his birthday cakes with arrows shot from a tree stand, instead of blowing out candles.
The painting was about three feet wide, showing a deer caught in the web of its destiny. As a hunter myself, I well knew the experience of crossing my own destiny with that of a deer. It's a big responsibility to shoot, track, butcher and eat your own meat. The animal is caught in an intersection of time and circumstance from which it cannot escape – a moment that blooms like a flower, then quickly fades.
We set up the target in the woods, and Jerry stood at a distance of 15 yards – typical for target practice with a compound bow. Jerry was nervous. Of course there was no danger of wounding a painting, but he did not want to ruin my work of art. He used a tri-bladed broadhead arrow, to make a triangular hole. "One shot," I told him. He stared at the target, then inhaled, drew back, and released.
It was a perfect heart shot, just behind the front shoulder. If this had been a real deer, it would have dropped in its tracks and died instantly – free to the last second of its life, with far less suffering than any factory-farmed animal.
I then finished the painting by creating another, inner flower around the triangular "wound", which flowed outward rather like blood, but in colors.
Some months later, my friend Mary Zeiss Stange, a hunter herself and professor of women's studies at Skidmore College, licensed the use of this painting for the cover of an anthology she published by women hunters. The book is titled Heart Shots. I wrote one of the essays in the book, titled "The Gift of Artemis: Hunting From a Mother's Perspective". I was most honored to contribute.
A few years later, Jerry died of a heart attack. He was 51 – a longtime cigarette smoker.
This Sunday is the last day of rifle (regular deer hunting) season here in rural New York. A week of late archery and muzzleloading ("black powder") season follows. If you live locally, be safe and wear bright colors if you walk in the woods or along wooded roads or fields.
D Yael Bernhard