RECLAMATION PROJECT
Batya
Weinbaum /2005
b. 1952
Listed: Who's Who of American Women, Pioneer Feminist of America
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I continued my field work in Mexico on Isla Mujeres, which means island of women, painting from the Maya goddesses of fertility, safe birth and conception and then other Maya female deities. My exploration of these myths appeared in a monograph from University of Texas Press in 2000, Islands of Women and Amazons: Representations and Realities. This research is used in seminars at Dartmouth, Harvard, and other universities.
Earth Goddess |
In my most recent work, I have been painting from archaeological drawings of the goddesses of Europe, India, and Indonesia, as well as from popular icons of Hindu goddesses collected in India and Indonesia, particularly Java and Bali.
While painting, I have been in a process of reclaiming my own inner strength, as well as that of the goddesses I paint. The more I paint, the more the paintings speak to me; the goddesses seem to shine with light, making suggestions as to what colors and materials I might add to further bring their messages through to this world. Sometimes this includes finding some ways to integrate who I am into my depictions of who they are, so the boundaries between myself and the goddesses might merge by inclusion of photographs of me, lines I have discovered in ancient texts about them, or snatches of my own poetry.
Remover of Sorrows |
(click image)Durga on Her Tiger |
(click image) Durga Riding Poetry |
My paintings evolve over a long period of time. The process is largely intuitive. The collection of images occurs over a number of years of research and travel. Then I do small sketches from the drawings and icons that I collect. Next I paint from those sketches. Then I enlarge the painted sketches electronically so I can more closely examine the layers of colors. Then I paint larger canvases, usually in acrylic, from the enlargements of the watercolors.
Dancing Girl Shards |
Celebration |
At this point, I begin to explore more creatively with texture, and anything goes. Any number of objects from my daily life might wander in—the pine cones on the walk between my studio and my house, the beans in the cabinets in the kitchen, the newspaper clippings I make in the doctor’s office while waiting for a mammogram.
Annapurna: |
Kali: Destroying Negative Emotion |
In the largest and final versions, I usually do multi-layered assemblage including mediums beyond the paint such as roses, shells, ribbons, pine cones, ferns, feathers, pearls, jewelry, photographs, newspaper clippings, playing cards, beads, coins, beans and rice.
Ancient Winged Hittite Goddess |
Transformer of Poisons |
Yogini in Detroit |
Rata Kidul |
When a particular message has been coming through, I work with this image several times, varying colors, background, emphasis and meaning. Usually each time I paint the background that is to be built up, the image becomes more abstract. The colors that I use start off with what I used in the initial watercolors, but change with what speaks to me from the canvas and the studio that day. I also experiment with different textures of the same paint, squeezing directly from tubes.
Durga Destroying Demon |
As a twenty first century American feminist painting Durgas in my backyard, I create different Durgas than a contemporary female Hindu practitioner in Varanasi might. Yet, in showing my art to people in shows or booths at street fairs, festivals and conferences I am teaching to a more secular audience. I sell traditional representations of the goddesses along with my own work, bridging the culture gap and hence “bringing the goddess home.” By talking with people and seeing their responses, I get a sense of what works, and what further people might need to know to bring some of the inner light of this goddess wisdom to a broader audience. Sometimes I use abstract expressionism; sometimes I use comic book cartoon techniques to resonate with popular culture. When I taught my students to perform the Descent to Inanna, I saw some strength derived from the reclamation of ancient representations of female divinity even if transhistorically and cross culturally. And the world does need the reintroduction of female strength whatever it takes to liberate such energy at this time. Like the ancient Byzantine painters of icons, I aim to express the spiritual reality of the symbolic forms with which I work. I meditate, pray, chant, and burn incense and candles as I paint.
So enjoy. Contact me to invite me to speak, teach, or do a show. The images are also for sale as originals or archival prints.
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1610 Rydalmount Road
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118 USA
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Artist bio:
Batya Weinbaum, an
archetypal theorist, received
her undergraduate degree
from Hampshire College;
her Masters in American
Studies at SUNY Buffalo;
and her Ph.D. in an interdisciplinary
American Studies Program
housed in a Department of
English at University of
Massachusetts at Amherst.
She has been Artist in Residence
at University of Illinois
Champaign and Urbana, and
has taught and lectured
at numerous institutions
of higher learning including
Union Theological Seminary,
Vermont College, Burlington
College, Cleveland State
University, University of
Michigan, University of
California at Santa Cruz
and Berkeley as well as
The Hague in the Netherlands.
She founded and edits the
journal Femspec, and has
also exhibited photography
in Boston and New York City.
Her fabric arts have been
sold in Maui, the Big Island,
Florida, Ohio and New York
through Red Serpent Arts.
She has published four books
and over 250 scholarly articles,
short stories, poems, popular
essays, photographs and
reviews in a variety of
venues.