Description
In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who choose those who may die in battle and those who may live. These handmaidens of Odin conducted the slain warriors of their choice from the battlefield to Valhalla.
In hind sight, it all seems so obvious but when I started this painting over 7 years ago (long before I got the common sense to photograph each stage of my painting process), I was a completely blank slate. I was merely testing out a new technique and blindly following another artist’s instructions to see what emerged. After my first 4 or so layers, time ran out and we stopped. That painting stopped for about 5 years! Then when I was rearranging my little studio one day I found it neatly tucked away and took a good look at it. Upside down, right side up, on one side, then the other… I say upside down, but to be upside down you have to have a right side up and I had no clue which direction worked best with this painting. Then all at once they appeared. What I’d long ago assumed were tendrils of messy hair became a plethora of faces! All strong at the front and fading into obscurity at the back. I cannot lie, it freaked me out at first. Yet the more I looked at them, the more they spoke to me. (Not literally! That really would have freaked me out!)
They were the epitome of my sometimes chaotic thinking, when too many thoughts are vying for my attention. They were the spirits of those who have gone before me, rooting for me and whispering their wisdom and truths to me so that I can go even further. They were the many faces I show when.. I’m confused but hiding it, when I’m enraged and unfraid to show it, when I’m in love and want to shout it from the roof tops. Eventually, they seemed less like a source of chaos or fear and more like a source of strength – something about many adding up to more than the sum of their parts kept dancing in my head.
It so happened that I was reading a book about Valkyries a few weeks later and suddenly I knew what to name this painting.
Valkyries.
I’m always saying to my kids that we all have a superpower – CHIOCE. Even if we don’t like the options, we still always have a choice. The thought simmered a bit more and then settled. Those faces are the strength, the power of choice, the ability to pluck joy out of sadness, and great love and gratefulness out of madness. They are Odin’s Valkyries coming to ensure that my strongest, purest, most deserving thoughts become actions, and those actions shape my reality, my Valhalla.
Oh yes… painting, you may have been born out of a desire to try something new, but you have become something power-full because you are loaded with Valkyries.
