Shaman

Our Art Teacher Extraodinaire, Cindy, won a grant to create a mural depicting the "family" here at WPS with all our diversity and cultures. All the students were done and so Cindy sent out a request asking teachers to participate. Of course, how could I say no to Cindy who does so much and yet asks so little? She gave me my tile early last week. Well, today I asked her if there was any extension on the deadline since it has been so busy at work that there's been no time to even think of a design! As I suspected, no there was no chance to extend since she had to take them to the kiln this weekend. Totally understand, but I ask just in case...

Well, as it turns out, there was no need for an extension since the design came out quite lovely with very little effort on my part and I LOVE it! I don't know why I am always so amazed at the result when I actually take the time to do something creative. It generally works out that I am captivated by my work. And since I could care less what other people think of my creativity, it's all for the good.

I went to a Mexican tile website for inspiration and found her within minutes. It was a petroglyph called "Shaman". She needed some tweaking to become me but within moments she was drawn on the tile and I'm ready to lay on the color tomorrow. It's a simple design so I don't think that it will take long to color at all.

Let me try to describe her and when she is fired and ready to mount, I'll post a picture. Around the outside of the tile, there is a painted black rope border to honor the "Unknown". On the diagonal there is a flame head with spiral hair coming out around the flame design. There is a yellow flame with an orange flame and a small inner red flame within each other. The body is a long rectangle with zig-zags on the top third, vertical stripes on the middle and wavy lines (for water) at the bottom. The body is finished by a fringe. The right arm (really just a line coming off of the shoulder) goes down and appears to be holding a computer. The left arm holds a book.

That's it. That's me. Doesn't it just sound like me?