Found at MagPie’s Corner – East Slavic Rituals, Witchcraft and Culture, it depicts the ‘Butter Lady’ of the spring festival of Maslenitsa, holding crepes and flames. However, I saw the figure in a more celestial light, as a goddess bearing the sun and the moon in her hands.
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| From MagPie's Corner |
Her horned headdress was inspired by images of Russian horned kichka hats, referring to the female elk, worn by mothers for fertility and protection. Though of course horns are also an ancient moon symbol.
She is available on Redbubble.
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| Bearer, watercolours, gouache and acrylics on gesso prepared paper (2021) |
oooh, i love this! love everything about it: the inspiration in the needlework motif, her kichka, the colours, the celestial symbols, all of it. i agree with your slant on the embroidery motif; to me it looks less like a geometric rendering of crepes and flames, and more like the slavic symbolic/geometric depictions of the morning and/or evening star or the sun, and the fertile field/sown field motif. i find it endlessly enchanting how needleworkers and other folk artists were able to tell complex stories and make visual prayers through their arts. such a rich source of inspiration for you and other thinkers and artists.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I'm pleased, and a little surprised, with how she turned out. She's far more grand than my initial imaginings. I'm glad that I took the image where she wanted to go.
DeleteLove the transcendent transformation of the original source material!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Malcolm. :)
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