Isn’t She Lovely?

The dome of our Mother Earth as She faces the Sun, Her other half in darkness. An image reminiscent of one inscribed on our planetary consciousness forty years ago, in Apollo 11’s first images of Earthrise.

Text is Alice Walker’s poem “We Have a Beautiful Mother.”

Isn’t she lovely?

This sculptural form emerged in a waking-up-in-the-morning moment last year. The poem had been going around in my mind like a litany for the previous year; the book form is one I learned in a book arts workshop over fifteen years ago (which needed considerable engineering trials and refinements); and the images just flowed as I was recovering from a trip to the medical underworld. This last of six pages in the book was inspired by a dome-shaped piece of Persian turquoise in a Navajo-silversmithed ring I found in New Mexico in 2007. The blue ground of the turquoise stone within the matrix stone was in a shape so womanly, I painted it for my Mother Earth image.

This is a prayer book for our Mother Earth.

I love the mandorla shape as the book emerges from the slipcase, for which I have Don Drake at Dreaming Mind to thank for his collaboration in this box design.

Today this book called Her Blue Body is showing for the first time in Boston. If you’re in the area, this book show would be fun to visit. Details here; my book is at Priscilla Juvelis’ table.

More images to be uploaded later on my website as I am experiencing technical difficulties today.

More about the creation of this book and the images that inspired it at this link.