The Goddess Coloring Book

It all started because of some bullshit that went down at the place I work. As a result, I realized I needed to get my ass out of there as soon as I possibly could. 

It's not a bad place to work but the fact is, prior to accepting the position, I'd worked as a freelancer from home for four years and, for seven years prior to that, I'd worked for a publishing house that primarily allowed me to work from home. What I'm trying to say is that I'm not really accustomed to working with other people on a day to day basis. 

True, there are some upsides to it but when it comes to actually doing the work I'm there to do, I find myself challenged at times. I'm also not really a "people person" in general and never have been. Nor have I ever been one to censor my words or feelings. Sometimes this tends to cause, um... problems when dealing with co-workers. Being PC is not my forté and being "professional" when people are being asses is a difficult state for me to achieve.

And so, due to a situation where another co-worker - who is now on my permanent ShitList forever - incited an argument with me that I wound up getting reprimanded for, I knew it was time for me to take my career back into my own hands and begin the process of working toward getting the hell out of there and back to doing what I do best - working on my own again.

But this process takes time and I'm not a stupid or impulsive woman - at least not when it comes to my work, career and livelihood. Other aspects of my life are debatable, but not this. I knew I was going to need to save up at least three months of salary as a buffer before I would be able to leave and go back to the freelancing process I so very dearly love. The dental bills incurred earlier this year was going to make this a slower process than I would have liked. Plus, I would need to have new work to show to potential clients and publishers... and I'd realized that, after nearly 20 years in the business, I was really tired of working in the children's educational industry. I'd been saying since I was a child that I wanted to grow up and illustrate children's books but had done absolutely nothing thus far to make even a dent in this field. I kept saying "someday" but over 30 years have gone by and I'm pushing 40 now. I realized I was going to have to make "someday" right here and right now.

So, I took stock of all the various projects I've had rolling around in my head for years and years and determined which one among them I wanted to embark on first. 

I've always wanted to create an illustrated 32 page color picture book version of Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott". I have a story of my own that I'd written in 1997 entitled "Be Careful What You Wish For" that I've also wanted to find the time to work on. There's a ridiculous Japanese fairy tale that I've loved since I was a child about a silly woman and her dumpling that's also been high on my list to create into picture book format. And back in early 20's when I did extensive work for the various women's spirituality publications, it was suggested to me by numerous people that I ought to do a coloring book featuring various goddesses from around the world - an idea I rather liked, too. In that same vein, I'd also thought it might be fun to do a coloring book in a similar format focused on some of the more notable empresses and queens throughout history. 

The choice to embark on The Goddess Coloring Book first wasn't anything more than a matter of closing my eyes and letting my finger fall on one of the options listed on a notepad. 

The first thing on the agenda for the project was to choose the goddesses. I wanted to ensure there would be goddesses of all ages, shapes and nationalities representing all kinds of different personalities and areas of interest, skill and attitude. I felt it was also important that I choose goddess archetypes that weren't your usual fare. I mean, really - how many times have I seen Brigid, Amaterasu and Athena? There are so many other interesting models of the Divine Feminine out there that never get a break. I want to give them there due. Of course, there will be a few of the old favorites, too... but I didn't want them to totally dominate the project.

Years ago when I did extensive illustrations of a similar nature for the women's spirituality publications there was one bit of criticism that stuck with me. A publisher of one of the particular magazines insisted no woman actually looked like the women I drew; that they were too beautiful. Fact is, I based my images on actual people - and I planned on doing it here again. 

Although some of the images will be based on women plucked right out of my own imagination, a large majority will also be modeled after many of my girlfriends and a family member or two. So far, everyone I have asked to participate in the project has graciously consented. I wish I could ask all my girlfriends but, as I mentioned, I want to have as many nationalities represented as possible so that narrows down the caucasian slots available. 

All in all, I plan to illustrate a total of 44 goddesses. To date, I have completed 14 and am working on Number 15 at the time of this post. 

I began posting the images at my MySpace account but that began to generate a lot of strange traffic to the point that I closed down my page during the entire month of July and took some time to eliminate a lot of personal information that had been there prior to. I would have kept it closed had it not been for the ridiculous amount of total strangers writing to me asking me to open it up again. Apparently, and unbeknownst  to me, quite a few of these people were regular visitors to my page who were very well versed in all kinds of details about my life and who wrote me as if they knew me intimately - some of them actually annoyed with me and going so far as to demand I make my page public again. It was more than a little creepy, to say the least. To avoid any more of these "adds with demands" I opened my page up again but, as I mentioned, removed a lot of personal information about myself from it. This way the lookie-loos can gander at the illustrations all they want without me feeling ever so slightly violated in the process. 

I decided to start this blog as a forum for the project because there's a lot I want to say about each image, each goddess, each one of my friends and family members who have agreed to share their unique energy to the creation of some of the images, why I chose them in the first place and my process with each piece. 

Writing about each one will also enable me to eventually distill the information down for the actual coloring book when the time comes to create the dummy to be sent out to publishers. MySpace just doesn't have a very good forum for being able to do this, nor do I wish to violate the confidence of these wonderful women who have offered to serve as models both physically and energetically by disclosing information about them and my relationship to them to total strangers. This blog is a closed forum by invitation only and only those I have a deep level of trust in or who have been unflaggingly supportive of my work have been invited here. 

And so, back in mid-May of this year, I started and completed the first of what will be 44 illustrations total: Héva. Should all go as planned, the 44th image should be completed in December of this year at the very latest. Let's hope all goes as planned. :)

And thank all of you here for subscribing. Your support along the way has been uplifting and invaluable to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you a million times over!!

Much love,

Renée