About the Artist

My name is Hayden Chance Parker. I was born on March 20th, 1991. I’ve been an ordained minister with a non-denominational church since 2016.

On Christmas Eve of 2002, I sat in the stairwell of my aunt’s house in Rockville, MD and overheard my father explaining to my cousins that Heaven is where good people go when they die, and Hell is where bad people go. My immediate reaction was to think: that can’t possibly be right. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that that the omniscient, omnipotent force responsible for the vastness and diversity of all Creation would boil people down into just two categories, and that when you died, you would be resigned to an unchanging fate for all eternity.

I crept back into my cousin’s room where I was sleeping for the holidays, grabbed my sketchbook, and started drawing from the mattress on the floor. I created a fantasy character that would represent a balance between these two extremes, and would uphold what would be, in my eyes, a more fair system of morality and consequence. She would be part of an illustrated novel, set in a fantasy world that I’d start building that night, filled with magic, various characters and deities of my design, and a plot of an epic journey during apocalyptic times where angels and demons clashed for supremacy. This is what would become Vulturesong.

From that day on, I dedicated myself to becoming a great artist not just in technical skill, but by learning about the intricacies of human nature and spirituality to become a better storyteller. At the time, my question wasn’t, what is the meaning of life? but, what is the secret to being happy? My motivation for creating this book became rapidly more personal, a liferaft for myself as I coped with abuse, what I’d find out later was high-functioning Asperger’s syndrome, and my increasing familiarity with the pervading oppression that is American capitalism and patriarchy. To do all this, I needed to discover and internalize the objective moral truths of the universe — things that would resonate with humanity as a whole — and for that I’d need more experience and the knowledge of what religions and spiritual practices had already established.

As a socially healthy but increasingly unhappy college freshman, I turned to Buddhism. I picked up Awakening the Buddhist Heart by Lama Surya Das at my university’s co-op bookstore and began practicing meditation. I found myself connecting deeply with the hard work that was maintaining unconditional compassion for all living things and began more intensive studies. Before I graduated with my degree in Fine Arts, I realized that my main character, the very same character who evolved from my first sketch on Christmas Eve ten years prior, was the great equalizer, Death itself. Things started rapidly clicking into place. I could suddenly put together systems of metaphors that supported more than just the notion of Good and Evil, but also matters of science and metaphysics. I moved away from conventional depictions of deities and began shaping infinitely more interesting designs.

My work on Vulturesong would slow post-college, as I eventually shifted into a corporate graphic design job that was financially stable but demanding and stressful. I achieved a massive breakthrough by reading Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death, which revealed what would become the most important tenet of my work: that all fears are really just our mortal fear of death, and every culture that has ever existed on this planet (both human and animal), has been shaped by this fear. I could feel I was getting closer to my goals, and two years after the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, I left my company to freelance and develop Vulturesong full time, publishing through Patreon and promoting via my various small social media accounts.

What happened next I cannot fully describe here because I am still so shocked that it happened. I can only say it was time to walk the walk and learn just what it truly meant to overcome one’s fear of death, and what it takes to achieve and sustain a state of Enlightenment. This required, without exaggeration, an amount of pain so enormous it is beyond what I thought a human body could ever survive.

Most of the content that was on the Vulturesong Patreon has been moved to this website and is now completely public and free to read. Here I’ll be collecting more than just my fantasy art, but also my spiritual revelations and experiences during these last three years. I’ve also decided to donate all of my non-corporate and non-commissioned artwork to the public domain. All of my original art, photography, and writing is free to use without credit.

I survive entirely on the charity of others, and as such, donations via Paypal or print sales via InPrnt to keep this website running are deeply appreciated. That said, your audience is more valuable to me. Please share my work with others if you find it interesting or helpful.

Take care, and be safe.
Hayden