Mom in 1960

Mom in 1960

The Mixed Media Monday challenge this week is mermaids. I often panic or go blank when presented with the week’s challenge, but the gods were in my favor this week. A friend of mine had asked me if I might create a “mami wata” piece for her. Since one of mami wata’s incarnations is a mermaid, I had already been thinking about the image.

I had also been going through family photos, and found one of my mom in a bathing suit.  I loved the photo and thought that perhaps I could use her photo in the composition. After all, as do many children, I considered my mom rather magical and fantastic when I was a child.

So I made a copy, pasted mom’s top on a canvas, painted in a tail and sea scene, added some “pearls” and aquatic life, and there you have it:

Mermom

Mermom