Dead and dying flowers

I have been away for a few days. I finished my sparrow paintings before I left. I say finished, but what I really do is gradually move away. Work finishes as my contact with it dies. (And the bird begins to decompose.) While I was away, I browsed in some antique markets. Their contents have some of the feel of the sparrow, things whose surfaces tantalisingly suggest a past. There is sadness attached to possessions whose life has brought them to the antique market, orphans waiting in limbo. A little like the souls that Andrew Bryant is trying to release. Hope is only a means to a temporary stay of execution?