River Styx: underground river of greco-roman myth where Charon ferries departed souls to the other side. It used to be a custom to bury the dead with two coins to pay for their passage. During my winter break of the first year of my MFA program I went to NYC to visit friends and record some songs i had written.
When i returned to Oakland I was inspired to hammer a large piece of raw canvas to the wall and throw paint at it. The River Styx painting was the result.
I started with two loose line drawings of the two towers as they were up in my heart after being in NYC. I had learned that they were creating a public park on top of the land where they buried the rubble which is what the brown mass on the canvas represented for me.
Then it started looking like a cave and that cave needed a river. And that river needed a ferryman. As the River Styx emerged I realized how deep rivers were flowing through me and I knew it was time to commit to the river paintings I had begin which would ultimately become a series of river altars.
The cave metaphor reflected my sense of being on a shamanic journey into art school as it is a common symbol for an inward journey of rebirth and renewal of the soul.
After moving to New Orleans I put my energy into getting my massage license transferred to Louisiana which meant I had to take an anatomy class to fulfill a state requirement. I found focusing on the nuts and bolts of bodywork to be very grounding and these #BeautifulBodies started falling out on my art practice.
After the Mardi Gras season I got hooked up with an art selling permit and decided to make my new skeleton friends my offering as they were fun to make, easy to transport and able to sell for an affordable price. Everyone can relate to a skeleton and its heart. We all have them. I believe love is at the core of everything and it is my pleasure to be selling tokens of empathy and heart awareness.
I feel like those are the energies we need most as a collective to solidify our sense of a global community. These painting are so cute to me and bring a lot of joy to those who are drawn to them. It's so fun to sit out on the streets of the French Quarter and watch people smile at my little friends. It's also really grounding and magical to spend my days making these icons as an act of gratitude for the strength and love I receive from my connection to my ancestors.
I like to tell people I am building my own catacomb as I set up each day on a fence in the back of St. Louis cathedral in the middle of the most catholic city in America. I'm in the process of making an etsy.com site so I can have a defined place to sell my work online.
Thank you for reading this far. May you have a beautiful day. May we all love our #BeautifulBodies
