Medicine Woman

"Medicine Woman, Medicine Man Walking with grace, I know your face, and I trust your hands" - Rising Appalachia

This is a piece I started just to keep my hands busy and ignore a camera while I was being interviewed for a local publication last week. It was just mindless play, but I liked the bones of it, the initial sketch, and decided to keep working it up with some color and collage elements. It’s all sorts of mixed media on watercolor paper. 12x18.

The all-seeing eye and the hair on the right are cut from a laser printed copy of my Eye of Ra painting (you can see that on my website) and both forearms are from a painting I never finished (never throw anything away). I rather like using bits of one painting in another and am often surprised at how well they integrate. I suppose I shouldn’t be, since they are all from my hand. The black speckled paper is one of my favorite art papers: I want to use it in everything I do! You may recognize it from a collage I made in the Big Art post from last week.

And then there’s the snake.

That happened right at the end. Her posture showed her clenched fist on the left, so I knew she wanted to be holding something, but what? I asked some art friends and got a list of around 20 objects. Some fun ideas like a magnifying glass, a torch, a scepter, a flashlight. I decided to go with a falcon, either collaged in or as an image transfer, but try as I might, the technology failed me and I gave up on that idea.

I hate snakes.

I don’t know why I went to the snake next. They frighten me, mostly because there are some where I live that can kill you, or at least make you very sick. Also, they move in a way that seems simply unnatural to us humans. We are genetically programmed to be fearful of them. They freak me out in the run-away-shrieking-like-a-12-year-old-girl kind of way. But there I was, looking at that black speckled paper I love and thinking it would make a great snakeskin, and that was that!

The snake whispers knowledge to Medicine Woman and her all-seeing eye knows the truth of any situation. Trust Medicine Woman; she knows what you need.

I figured I needed to change my attitude about them in order to properly paint one,

so I did a little research about women and snakes, or goddesses with snakes and I found that in many cultures, snakes are a symbol of healing and knowledge. As I worked to add in the snake, I began to imagine this woman as a Medicine Woman, a Witch, a Healer, a Priestess, or some such person of importance to the people around her. Someone they would come to for wisdom, judgment and healing. Do you feel strongly about snakes? Tell me your story…

Here’s a terrific piece , Ouroboros, about the creepy critters by Kate Carey, a very talented writer I’ve recently met here in South East North Carolina, who shares my skeeve about snakes.

This Rising Appalachia song, Medicine, played constantly in my head as soon as I named her Medicine Woman. Powerful and beautiful music.