Algiers, Louisiana artist, Herbert Singleton, died on July 25 of lung cancer. His boldly carved and painted cedar panels both skewered and exalted his life and times. Singleton displayed keen insight into the socio-economic limitations imposed upon many in the New Orleans area. He railed against hypocrisy on both sides of the racial divide. Singleton overcame many hardships, some compounded by his own misdeeds. He survived a near-fatal shooting, drug addiction and, all tolled, nearly 14 years in prison, many of them in the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. He first derived meaningful income from artistic endeavours in the early 1980s, carving walking sticks for New Orleans buggy drivers and 'voodoo protection' stumps for friends. After his final stint of incarceration, the dispirited artist was encouraged by a French Quarter gallery owner to carve out his pain. Singleton dismantled an old chifforobe (clothes cupboard) and created his first bas-relief panel: a stark white skeletal figure cut out of a black background, bordered by red. The heads of serpents peer from the 'infected' figure's ribcage (see Vodou and Catholicism, RV #30).

In works such as Who Do We Trust and Who Speak For Man Singleton addressed our seeming inability to meet the standards we set for others (see Herbert Singleton, RV #40). In one masterwork, he carved self-destructive indulgences - drugs, gambling, sex - into a huge cypress log he salvaged from the Mississippi River. Exhibited as the Algiers Rosetta in High on Life: Transcending Addiction at the American Visionary Art Museum, Singleton referred to his work more directly as the Tree of Death. In other more festive works like his Jazz Funeral and Mardi Gras pieces he paid tribute to the uniqueness of New Orleans culture. Sadly, due to failing health, Singleton was unable to complete a post-Katrina work. Perhaps, upon full review of the artist's career, it can be said that he did indeed leave sufficient comment. Singleton's artworks are in numerous important public and private collections worldwide including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland.