The Gathering

I'm still not sure I'm done with this, but I think I'm finally done with the woman in the middle. This is a painting I started last spring when I was first starting to paint. I had painted 2 paintings in the Legendary Life course by Shiloh Sophia and this one was born out of a bout of loneliness at 3AM.

I just started swirling paint around and thinking about how much I craved connection, as I was finishing my 3 month contract in California and was heading for a 4 week contract clear across the country. I wanted Community, dang it all to heck, if I had to paint them myself!

This is what happened first

 Circles! and then I added more colors

Still didnt' know what was coming, but at least I was covering the canvas. 

  Wow! I suddenly saw a woman holding a baby who was holding a...ball? And four more circles. So I got out my sketchbook to see what in the world was happening next....

  Hmmmm. Looks like the big one is Hindu, even though she's holding a baby like a madonna. And I see the Cosmic Cowgirl peeking from behind her veil which is blowing around the rest of these characters, whoever they are. The one on the bottom looked a bit Asian, if not buddha-like but the other two? NO idea!

  I slowly sketched them with white paint, and wasn't very happy yet. The one in the middle looked like a dinner plate, and the big Hindu goddess looked like a lightbulb....but I kept going

   Finally I figured out who was who in this crowd!! I already knew Sarasvati and the Cosmic Cowgirl (my inner artist just starting to appear) Kwan Yin had showed up, and that shouldn't have surprised me since I had bonded with her from the first time I read about her in a Pearl Buck book in the 5th grade. She stands outside of Heaven until every single soul can get it, and her compassionate presence was probably always around in my life.
The long braids I recognized from my early 20's, and that hat on the still cartoon-like woman was the hat I had bought last year for my birthday only a couple months before I started this painting. So that would be me. Sort of
The baby? Some kind of cosmic Baby archtype, and probably having something to do with my infertility. NO idea what she's holding.
And that's how the painting stayed for almost a year until I tried to fix that cartoon woman who was supposed to be me, but instead looked like she came off of a cocktail napkin cartoon from the 1960's.
My first attempt...after 3-4 layers of wrong choices, was this:

  Holy Cannoli! What did this poor woman EAT? She has turned purple and her eyeshadow! Gurrrrl, go back and try again
I had to post her in the two artist groups I'm in on FB, and after a bit of advice and a LOT of courage, I finally tried again. So in case you forgot the picture on the top, and so that you can truly see the contrast:

 And there they all are. The Gathering of my current self looking with affection at the 20 year old me I've been so angry with for lots of reasons, two strong goddesses, a Cosmic Baby with a mysterious sphere, and my inner artist.

This time I wasn't wordy, I was...um...picturey?

I kind of want to change some of the other faces, but they represent my style at the time, and they're not mortals, so they can stay represented as misty Beings with closed eyes.

I'm satisfied. Some kind of closure has happened.

Painting is magic