Creating a Personal Mythology

During the process of making art, over time I have begun, rather accidentally to create a personal mythology. It has been evolving for several years now, the start of it was when I made 2 pieces of "mail art" for a show at the Hill Country Art Foundation, the pieces were small in size and that seems right for the seed of an idea, small is what we expect, like an acorn that grows into a giant tree over time. I think the over time part is the important thing to remember, so often I get caught up wanting things to happen so quickly, and I know that things usually grow slowly.

The first one was a spiral of tiny footprints with this written over it:

Long long ago, when the world was still warm, God's Mother, the Queen of Heaven gave birth to the universe, and this is how it happened. She felt such joy that she began to dance and as she danced, her footprints formed the spiral of the universe. She combed the stars out of her hair, then gathered up a handful and pressed them together to form the moon and the sun. She carefully placed them in the sky. For many years she lived alone in the sky, above the clouds, and when the world became cool, she made a cloak for herself from the blue starry sky, and she sat and rocked on the crescent moon and watched the oceans tides rise and fall. She decided it was time to make fish for the sea and birds for the air and animals for the land. She caused the lightning to strike the sea and fish were born, she caused the thunder to fill the air and birds were born. She caused the earth to tremble and shudder and animals came into being.

Today I finished a piece, titled: "Then Sophia created the first birds, nine cranes, and she set them free to fly across the universe."