Crowning. Watercolor, India ink, and gouache. 22”x30”

Palmistry. Watercolor and India Ink. © Liz Darling 2017

Gateways in We'Moon 2018

I feel extremely honored to have my work included in this forthcoming book by Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang and Dr. Mary Ann Beavis. Check out Dr. Hwang's website, www.magobooks.com.

Artemis. Watercolor and India Ink. © Liz Darling 2017

It's always interesting to me how an idea adapts to whatever medium is used. Even when I think I have a fairly clear idea of what I'm going for, paintings somehow end up with their own identities.

Wombniverse/The Red Sea. Watercolor, India Ink, and Gouache. © Liz Darling 2017.

This (link right here) is an awesome podcast by Women's Liberation Radio News. You can listen to it on Soundcloud. The episode is on Women's Spirituality, but my favorite part is the segment by Sekhmet She Owl, which starts at minute 48:50. An excerpt:

"Religion is inextricable from patriarchy, and if we want to set women everywhere free from male domination and give them feminist consciousness, we have to understand what religion does to them and refute the lies that religious men tell. Religion is used to colonize women’s minds, to make them cooperative with male power. The indoctrination starts early in life for most of us. As girls, we’re forced to go to church or temple or mosque, we’re taught to pray to all-powerful, all-knowing male god, to beg him for what we need, and to feel guilty when we disobey him. We’re taught to kneel before him; submit to him, be grateful to him as the source of all goodness in our lives, and life itself. There is no equivalent reverence of a female figure anywhere. There is no female in the individual or collective imagination with such power, knowledge, or creativity. Men designed it this way, millennia ago, erasing the goddess that civilizations everywhere once worshiped.

Patriarchal religion places a male authority figure in the female psyche, leading women and girls to accept male power over them as unquestionable. Mary Daly said 'when the God is male, the male is God.' Consider how much more submissive religious women are to the men in their lives compared to secular women. Consider how much farther away women on the religious right are from feminism than liberal and leftist women and corresponding religiosity versus secularism in these two groups. While patriarchal religion is not the source of misogyny in men or women, it does an excellent job of enhancing the misogyny already there, and excusing political, cultural, and social expressions of misogyny. Belief in an omnipotent, male deity and his rules for proper living render women compliant with male authority, both in the home and in the community. This is why most religious women on the right go along with the brazen misogyny of their men. God told them to be obedient wives and daughters. Patriarchal religion is men’s fantasy of their own absolute power, control, domination, and immortality. Rather than some metaphysical truth about the universe or human beings, we should trust male religion to reveal the truth about the male psyche, male ego, and men’s deepest desires."

-Sekhmet She Owl

Dualities. India Ink. © Liz Darling 2017.

The Dream. Watercolor on Arches Paper. © Liz Darling 2017.

Rebirth. Watercolor and India Ink on Arches Paper. © Liz Darling 2017.

The Healer. Watercolor, India Ink, Gouache, and Gold Leaf on Arches Paper. © Liz Darling 2016.

Phases (Set of 9 Moons). India Ink on Arches Paper. © Liz Darling 2016.

ArtForms Gallery

Luna. Watercolor, India Ink, and Graphite on Arches Paper. © Liz Darling 2016.

My work appears in She Rises: How Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Vol 2. You can order the book (in color, b&w, and PDF) directly from the publisher, or pre-view it on Amazon.

Also, my painting "and you will be like God" will be on the cover of Single Mothers Speak on Patriarchy - A Girl God Anthology by Trista Hendren and Pat Daly. Coming late 2016!

   

"On women's part, after submitting to patriarchal churches for centuries, they have become disgusted with religion and have forgotten to consider their own divine origins. The patriarchy has separated the human from the divine but it has also deprived women of their goddess or their divinity. In the history of women religion is mixed up with the culture of the earth, the body, life, peace. Religion is the opiate of the people only because it is imposed upon us as the religion of the race of men." -Luce Irigaray

 

Meditative Mother. Watercolor and India Ink. © Liz Darling 2016.

“Because religion has such a compelling hold on the deep psyches of so many people, feminists cannot afford to leave it in the hands of the fathers."

"Even people who no longer "believe in God" or participate in the institutional structure of patriarchal religion still may not be free of the power of the symbolism of God the Father. A symbol's effect does not depend on rational assent, for a symbol also functions on levels of the psyche other than the rational. Symbol systems cannot simply be rejected; they must be replaced. Where there is no replacement, the mind will revert to familiar structures at times of crisis, bafflement, or defeat.”
― Carol P. Christ

“There were no religious images in the churches or synagogues of our childhood that celebrated the birthing powers of women. According to religion's myths, the world was brought into being by a male God, and woman was created from man. This reversal of biological process went unchallenged. Most of us didn't even notice the absence of the mother. Although we may not have been consciously aware of her absence in bible stories and sermons, her absence was absorbed into our being. And its painful influence was intensified as we observed the design of our parents' relationship and the treatment of our mothers by our fathers and brothers. Our families mirrored the hierarchical reality of the heavens. In a society that worships a male God, the father's life is more valuable than the mother's. The activities of a man's life are more vital and necessary than the mother's intimate connections with the origins of life. The father is God.”
― Patricia Lynn Reilly

"and you will be like God". Watercolor, gouache, graphite, colored pencil, and collage on Arches paper. © Liz Darling  2014.

Goddess Apparition. © Liz Darling  2011. 

I noticed this apparition while sitting outside, vising with some friends. She found me. I think this must be Ana Mendieta's spirit, reincarnated into a tree.

Lunar. Oil and Collage on Canvas. © Liz Darling 2010.