Many Waters: Now Available
The final collection in Feminine Ecologies.
Dear Reader,
Many Waters is now available to view and collect on my website.
This collection completes the Feminine Ecologies series. Although the inquiry continues, the visual body of work comes to a close with Many Waters.
What began as a painting practice slowly opened into feminist philosophy, ecology, mythology, and lived experience. Each path seemed to lead toward another, until they no longer felt separate. I kept searching for a language that could hold them together, and again and again, I arrived at water.
If there’s anything I hope this work offers, it’s this: yes, it’s about women and nature and myth and magic, but it’s not about any of those things alone. It asks me, and I hope it asks you too:
How do we remember ways of living that are relational, embodied, and attentive in a culture that pulls us toward separation?
What becomes possible when we stop trying to fix ourselves?
How do we remain in relationship with the Earth while living in a culture that has forgotten its kinship with her?
What forms of belonging become possible when the world no longer reflects our deepest values?
You are part of this ecology.
Water keeps asking me to pay attention to relationship. Every day, as I painted, these questions settled into pigment and symbol, into the gestures of my hands, my breath, and my body.
What is my relationship to water?
What is my relationship to motherhood?
What is my relationship to place?
What is my relationship to my body?
What is my relationship to grief?
What is my relationship to community?
What is my relationship to the living world?
What is my relationship to dreaming?
I hope you enjoy meeting these shapeshifting women, these threshold beings, these porous and strong-boundaried ones. Perhaps one of these paintings is already in conversation with you.
Every piece in this collection is an original. If collecting one isn’t possible, and you’d like to send a note and share a thought, I’d love to hear from you. Conversations are part of the work too.
Thank you to everyone who has already welcomed these paintings into their homes during the early access release.
Love,
Vanja
I love your paintings!!!! If I had the money, I would splurge on your artwork. Thank you for sharing it in your posts and on your website. I also deeply appreciate your writing and self-reflections. Blessing to you and your family.