Art title

Recovery

Medium

Collage

Artist

Artist’s statement

On my own journey to recovery, art became a valuable practice in my life. This piece was created with one simple question in mind: How much texture can I get onto one page? I sat on my porch, burned some newspaper, and layered on thrift tags, raw papers, ash, flowers, paint, and pencil.

Another Ash Wednesday Yet Again Un-Ashed Yet Marked All the Same

Writing by

Jonathan Fletcher

I don’t need the aged finger 
of a priest to smudge my forehead 
black in order to feel marked.
I don’t need him to say
Remember that thou are dust,
and to dust thou shall return
in order to feel dirty.
I don’t need forty days of fasting
in order to repent.
Every day is Lent for me.
I abstain
from thoughts that lie and harm.
I give up
the urge to give up.
I deny
the dark things the satisfaction.
And cross
that long, hard path from the dead 
to the living.

Published

March 26, 2025