Mixed media on paper
10 inches x 10 inches
January 2025
This began as a sketch I thought I’d never have the patience to bring to full color. It languished, but once a while I’d revisit it, and once tried to produce the honeycomb wall texture with bubble wrap and yellow paint. It didn’t look bad. I added more color and more detail. Then more color and detail. And did the bubble wrap printing again. TBH what kept me going on this picture was the thought that I couldn’t do worse than AI art. I finally finished it in 2025.
The inspiration is hard to describe. A series of conversations with someone from Mexico (around 2016 to 2017) helped us to see the similarities between Chinese and Mexican ancestor veneration. I don’t personally feel I come from a lineage worthy of admiration, but I was captivated by this person’s stories of their grandmother’s or mother’s healing and weather magic. At least once, it seemed that this power was yielded with great emotional energy. It takes a special kind of connection to nature’s forces, I imagined. And what if that kind of could be used to protect the weakest among us?
It seemed fitting to complete it in a month and year we may need that kind of energy.