Installation!

It is finished!!!

I completed the mermaids tail last week, her hair, and the details such as props and jewelry (one of which I made removable so that I can wear it muhahahaha)

and here is the headpiece on the mermaid monster goddess:

Then the weekend came and it was time to install. After a snowy four hours, this happened:

and I especially love how the tail fin turned out:

I included little artifacts to help add to the sense of the "scene" or narrative. Many of them have sentimental value, either something given to me by someone important in my life, or something I picked up along my life. In a way, the mermaid has become not only a sort of self-portrait, but a shrine encompassing these material objects and the memories they contain. 

I also wanted to share a handful of quotes from the book The Power of Myth Deborah loaned me that caught my attention:

"So the feminine represents in a way, the inclusive love for progeny. The father is more disciplinarian. He's associated much more with the social order and the social character. This is actually the way it works in societies. The mother gives birth to his nature, and the father gives birth to his social character, you might say, how he is to function" (181-182)

"The idea of the Goddess is related to the fact that you're born from your mother" (166)

"All of the references of religious and mythological images are to planes of consciousness, or fields of experience that are potential in human spirit" (165)

"The myths are metaphorical of spiritual potentiality in the human being, and the same powers that animate our life animate the life of the world"

These lines made me have deep conversations with myself about these themes of the goddess, femininity/masculinity, and mythological references that appear in my art. Thank you Deborah! 

:)