Mermaids

Mermaids have been calling to me.

I have had this painting forever. I love how she is holding the shining pearl to her chest, heading further and further down into the deep.

And of course this beautiful painting I discovered in college by John Williams Waterhouse, I love the shiny iridescence of her tail and the way it flips back around her.




So I have always enjoyed mermaids, but lately it feels like a stronger pull.
when we went to Maine this summer I had looked intently out on the horizon for a peek of a seal or maybe a mermaid coming up from the cold dark water. I didn't see any, but Lily did find me the statue on the left in a cluttered souvenir shop. And we found Georgia this shirt with a Mermaid from Belfast Maine where we stay.






















When Rob and I eloped in New Orleans years ago I saw pastels of mermaids for sale outside in the main square in a little cart. They were rich dark colors with hints of gold and yellow, the mermaids swimming down, almost abstract. I admired them and moved on, but have thought of them often and then tried to google them in every way imaginable, but it was an artist with a cart, not a store and it was 12 years ago. So I never found a glimpse of them again and by now who knows if my idea of them is anything like the original, glanced at for a moment years ago.

I recently realized I had to draw them. I had to make them myself. But I don't really draw well, not faces, not well enough to satisfy the image in my mind.
So, in the kitchen at work, I said to two of my favorite fellow nurses. "I think I have to take an art class at the community college because I have to learn to paint and draw enough the make mermaids. For some reason I've got to paint mermaids." One of them, an amazing artist, replied, "Oh no. I'll teach you!" and the other looked at me and smiled a special smile and said, "Oh I have something for you, Katherine. You'll see."

I thought those were very nice reactions to a totally random statement.

Then one of them, Susan, brought me this gorgeous and magical bracelet. She had one I had never seen and she wanted me to have one, too. We share the same birthday, she and I, and she also wanted to give me gift after recovering from my illness earlier in the year. I adore it. Looking down on it all day reminds of magic and the good things that come when you say something that strikes you in the presence of people you love.





















I found another mermaid painted my Michael Hague in a book of fairies that I copied and laminated to sit by my altar.





















I haven't tried to paint/draw them yet, but I am working up to it.
I think there is something about going deep and possibly finding something filled with light and life even in the cold darkness.