(oil paint, pen, coloured pencil on pine frame)
Another piece that I've had sitting around for a while. Originally, it only had the figure, straining against the sides, trying to escape the 'box'. Then I added the string and the crow on the bottom holding the end of it. After I drew it I felt really bad at creating this world where a crow was being jerked around, like I'd tied a REAL crow to the end of a string. So I stopped and stuffed it in a box... Until last night...
I added a second crow and continued the string past the bottom crow, giving them both a more 'active' role in the situation. But then I needed to do something at the end of it...
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Lately I've been reading more Norse mythology and a bit of it seems to have worked its way into this piece.
- The most logical choice for the end of the string was a spool or spindle. The Norns are Norse demi-goddesses of destiny, dieties who "spin the threads of fate" of both gods and men.
- The crows turned into Odin's two ravens, Huginn and Muninn (their names mean 'Thought' and 'Memory') who fly about the world delivering messages and gathering knowledge. At night they return and perch on Odin's shoulders and whisper into his ears everything they've seen and heard.
So this is turning out to be a Norn spinning the thread of someone's life, deciding their fate, with Huginn and Muninn watching closely (and maybe lending a foot or two) so they can tell Odin all about this new person coming into the world... But even as she's spinning she's getting tangled up in the thread as well, maybe losing a bit of her objectivity...?
I love it when these things happen. This thing has just been sitting for the last 6 months because I couldn't figure out how to finish it. Then everything just falls into place. Stuff I've been reading, pictures I've been looking at, all just seem to fit together perfectly to make it complete.
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norn=woodsprite? The woodsprite was my consolation/therapy piece for not being able to finish this one when I started it.
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”
