Stephanie's Studio

In "The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets," Barbara Walker says ancients believed any reflective surface, solid or liquid had mystical powers because the reflection is a part of the soul. Hence, soulless beings like werewolves and vampires, show no reflection in the mirror. The mirror is connected intimately to water, through the story of Narcissus and Echo. Various water orisha wouldn't be caught dead without their mirrors. Across cultures, water represents a mysterious spirit world. Walker closes her beautiful entry on mirrors sharing some Buddhist thoughts on reflections in the mirror; the belief that reflected images are a phantom of the mind. For the past few years, or realistically to be honest, the better part of the last decade I have avoided the magical mirror on the wall. Lately though, I have been catching glimpses when I go by the mirror that intrigue me so much that they have entered the landscape of my dreams. The other night, I saw an ...

This ATC features a woman from a Botticelli painting transformed into a mermaid with two angels behind her.  While I was working on it I was transported to my childhood and began pondering my connections to mermaids, the lake and the sea.  When I was growing up I spent many hours swimming in a lake fed by freshwater springs.  I would encounter all sorts of wetland creatures as I swam, like small schools of fish, turtles and even otters.  Sometimes I would get tangled in the seaweed.  Swimming and rowing were respites from a sometimes stressful life inside the house. I always found wonder and a sense of peace from observing the tides, floating and swimming deep down towards the sandy bottom of the lake.  As I grew older my uncle introduced me to the Ifa path of the Yoruba people and that was my first time of reflecting on the diverse types of mermaids of the spiritual world.  At first he thought I was a child of Oshun, but eventually it was revealed...