Drawing Challenge #36: Mermay

[minoanmiss]

Title: Mami Wata
Artist: minoanmiss
Rating: G
Fandom: The Religions of the African Diaspora
Characters/Pairings: Mami Wata and her Snake
Content Notes: warning: artist has a sociopolitical essay to go with this one





So one aspect of this challenge I wanted to do was mermaids from
"other cultures". As a Black woman from the African diaspora living in the US, I'm pretty thoroughly soaked in the US version of Western Culture.

My explorations led me to a goddess from my own ancestral culture whom I had never heard of before. Mami Wata, mermaid water goddess of the African diaspora. I felt at once cheated and revivified to learn of Her, and I had to draw Her.

(I owe Her another drawing. I never got Her symbolic mirror into this one.)

Comments

[amberdreams]

When you mentioned her I looked her up and one of the interesting things I read was that she's not always a she but is gender fluid. So interesting how Western culture is completely rigid about gender while other cultures are so much more flexible.

[minoanmiss]

Thank you for telling me this -- the closest my research took me was saying "she's sometimes a man/has a male counterpart" which I now see is such an oversimplification!

[mific]

She's very lovely, and all the gorgeous blues!

[minoanmiss]

When I was thinking about the colors I thought it might be nice to make her all warm and set her against a blue palette.

[adafrog]

Cool.

[minoanmiss]

*curtseys*

[seleneheart]

I'm glad you went searching for different sorts of mermaids - I get tired of the usual 'tropes' for them as well, especially with something like Mermay. This one is amazing - thank you for introducing Her.

You have a real gift for doing patterns and clothing, I've noticed in your other pieces too.

[minoanmiss]

Oh goodness, thank you. I actually don't draw most of the patterns I use (although I did draw the one for the deep sea mermaid), but collect them from free art sources and archaeology articles. This one is from Ancient Egypt.