This painting is the culmination of a meditation on joy!
I had decided that, in art, I will only do what brings me joy. This made me think about what joy means to me, and specifically what experiences gives me a sense of joy. I thought about my life and how my career as a neuropsychologist had made me feel a lot of positive feelings; being able to help others, to be useful to society, to be of service- these feelings gave me a sense of happiness and contentment, but never joy! Joy was a feeling associated with my childhood, with play, with having fun, flowers, patterns, textures - associations of my mother’s shop (she was a fashion designer) and all the lavish beauty it held for me as a child; then later, my love of flowers, specifically hibiscus and lilies. In my exploration on the notion of joy, I searched podcasts and my first hit was a podcast series, the Art of Joy, by a mother and daughter couple. I randomly chose a topic and hit on a channeling of the Divine Goddess - Mary Magdalene - and the story of the woman who ‘officially’ channelled her!
As I listened this image emerge - the blue cloak representing the Mother Mary - her divinity and purity, but I wanted a cloak that was more fun, like a Josef’s technicolor dream coat! A versatile coat you can turn around to represent different aspects of the self. I thought of Mary Magdalene as she fled her persecutors during the Crusades and how she would turn the coat around to camouflage who she was, and then, when she was addressing her congregation she would turn the coat, showing the regal blue colour of her divinity.
Watch my youtube video, originally conducted as a live IG TV talk, where I tell you the story of how this image was borne and the meanings associated with it.
