I do a piece every year to celebrate the wonderful traditions associated with The Day of the Dead, usually the first of November. This very personal family celebration usually involves putting together an alter to show reverence and memory to those loved ones who are gone. Pictures, prayers, items of food or other favorite objects of the loved one are included. Other traditions are sugar skulls and paper mache skeletons to remind us of our mortality, but usually with a sense of humor about death rather than forbidding.

Juan Posada, the famous Mexican illustrator and artist during the Mexican Revolution gained the heart of the Mexican people with his highly politically charged cartoons of war and corruption, using the skeleton as his comic vehicle. These images have remained constant in the minds of those who love the skeleton to tell a story. I am one of them.