This entire artwork includes my two 5x7 Scratchboard pieces "Long Sleeves or Short Sleeves" and "Ghosts of Sierra Leone." They are mounted on a high quality giclee reproduction of a mine worker in Sierra Leone holding an actual blood diamond. My intent is to capture the cost of mining these gems in the context of the price that innocent civilians paid during this civil war. Rebel militias fought government forces over control of the mining. They mutilated civilians with machetes as part of their terror campaign. Prior to doing so, sometimes the rebel would ask the victim if they wanted long or short sleeves. One was amputation at elbow and the other at the wrist. The positioning of the elder who was killed and the infant living with an amputated arm is significant. The ghost of the elder grieves as she looks at the innocent child.