The Swordwife Unveiled
It took me several tries to get this image right, and there were many discarded paintings in my folder by the time I was finally able to say that this one was completed. I was spinning this tale around and around in my mind for months, and with it came the spinning of images, particularly this one, of a Swordwife, or the witch queens who guarded the desert kingdoms, who kept in their memory and magic the tales of battle.
There is a very elaborate legend that I spun to go along with this painting. Very simply, the swordwife was a character that was going to appear in my next major novel project, a tale of colonialism and vengeance in a fantasy world. In it, the “northerners” arrived to conquer the desert people, but were consistently deterred for unknown, often stupid reasons. Communications would fail. Guns would refuse to fire. Until, one day, the teenage son of the military captain did what no one else had imagined: he shot and killed one of the women who carried the banners behind the “savages” army.
And when he did so, he unleashed her soul, which ransacked and pillaged everything in sight, consuming enemy and companion alike while screeching retribution.
The novel has not yet come to be, but someday I know I will put it together. Until then, this woman stares at me.
April 17 , 2007, Adobe Photoshop 7, Intuous 2 6×8
