Mother Pearl

Acrylic on Canvas
24" x 30" x 2"
Original $8,800

“MOTHER PEARL”
Pearl cries…Little girl blue
Makes homes for the faeries a combination of the two
She laughs and screams in songs she sings
Real and wild, freedoms expression child
See her perched on heavens stairs
With Peacock feathers in her hair… 

   “Mother Pearl ” a free spirited, creatively dressed woman, soulful and true. Weaving her colorful tapestries in her flashy styled fashion, see her perched upon the stairs with Peacock feathers in her hair.   This eclectic soul inspired jam-packed creative Expression.  Janis Joplin was an archetype who revealed her soul with an unprecedented punch!  

She chose to express her pain in a creatively raw and honest way. She stood up in the face of racialism and spoke her truth, in a time that wasn’t accepted, especially from a woman. Janis Joplin’s singing allowed her to articulate creatively a “full tilt boogie” Expression of herself. 

Everyone has a center in which he or she has strayed from starting at birth, to grow from childhood to an adult is to lose contact with your core essence. Your center is as unique as your fingerprint. The quest is to relocate, not the center of your best friend, parents, a movie star, or even a spiritual teacher, but your own personal center. Awaken your divine imagination allowing your senses to play, anything at all as long as it’s from your heart that strikes your fancy. 

So… share your heart and dance, make music, paint your body purple, write a poem, plant a garden, shout your truth from the mountaintops, dress up with feathers in your hair, utilize all aspects of your personal creative flair. Self Expression is essential if you are going to be happy, it is the way Creator creates through you and it is why you are here. 

The message is to dig deeper into what inspires your true Expression. You may have bound your wings and hindered your flight because of someone else’s ideas of what you should be. It’s time to find your way to the light of Expression from your heart and let your spiritual child play.  

THE STORY;
I began painting Pearl with the intention of healing Janis Joplin’s spirit. When I was a young teenager coming from a life of serious abuse, the trauma left me feeling empty, alone, with no self-esteem or love for myself. 

The first time I heard Pearl, I was 13 years old, babysitting I put in some music I had never seen before. On the cover was a free spirited, very creatively dressed, tapestry of a woman with feathers in her hair, it was love at first sight for me and when I put it on to listen to her, I was blown away at Janis Joplin singing the blues so soulful, free and wild. The sounds she made matched the tapestries she wove in her expressive hippie styled fashion, full of passion. I felt her as an archetype for my own struggle to freedom. She turned me on at the time as no one had ever done. I sang out with her, every single syllable, every private chance I had.

 This was the exact same time I’d discovered in my eighth grade art class that I could draw. “This” became my inspiration to express myself in ways that were safe. I started drawing fanatically every day when I got home from school and every chance I could at school.  Janis was an artist who revealed herself to me, raw and honest with soul and a punch! She had a thorough way of exploring her pain and a devotion to telling it like it is.

In an interview Janis told a reporter, “Oh, yeah, I’m scared. I think, oh, it’s so close, can I make it? If I fail, I’ll fail in front of the whole world. If I miss, I’ll never have a second chance on nothing. But I gotta risk it. I never hold back, man. I’m always on the outer edge of probability.”

She was the first woman to achieve the kind of stature she acquired. She stood out as an American Female rock star in a male dominated scene. She was the only 60’s culture hero to create an open book, visible to the public, of a woman’s experience in the quest for liberation, an expression very different up until this point. 

I wanted to express my inner turmoil in a creative, raw and honest way like her. I loved her daring, adventurous nature. I loved her spirit, I loved that she stood up in the face of racialism and spoke her truth, in a time that wasn’t accepted or considered safe to do. I loved her and I wanted to show here how grateful I was and help her out of her pain. 

She was aiming for something beyond the standard mundane, which denied for her, true expression of her authentic self. Singing, offered Janis the spoken words she could never have offered to the full expression she committed herself to. Painting has offered me a way to articulate , what is inarticulate from my soul travels and ancient memories. I need not think linearly, I simply feel and let the Spirit move me. Janis’ expression helped show me how to uncover my own soulful blues of sorrow. She gave me permission to find my way to the Light through a “no holds bard,” kind of expression in creativity. 

They said she died of an overdose of heroine, alone in a Los Angeles hotel room in October of 1970, at 27 years of age, just after cleaning up her serious drug intake and completing her most recognize album, Pearl.  I was sorry I never saw her play live and my heart ached for her.

I knew one day I would paint her, I wanted to offer my gratitude to her spirit and do what I could to heal her trauma in life. It took me awhile, but when I became ready, she was right there waiting for me. I prepared my studio and myself as I usually do with Prayers and meditation and I burned sacred essences of copal, frankincense and myrrh. I stated my intension to help heal and bring her Spirit love, and I called Janis Joplin in, singing her soulful blues the whole time I painted.

In the process of laying out the base paint, I invited her to paint and play with me. The canvas was lying flat on the ground and we splashed and swirled colors of green and maroon paint, while singing “Combination of the Two”, “Little Girl Blue” and more, at one point I walked around and looked at the canvas from the other direction. There she was, Janis Joplin had arrived! I was very excited to see the shape of her image in a ghost like figure already formed from that perspective. 

When I began to work on the details of her face, I used a photo I found unusual to most of Janis’ images, she wanted to be pretty, she was a Goddess, and I was going to paint her as such! Soon I began to think of her ‘65 Porsche that she had painted in psychedelic hues with such a classy expression of her life style of who she embodied herself to be. I was reminded just how creative she really was. And so I invited her to paint the whole painting with me.

The first time I began painting stairways was in “Creation’s Child”. Pearl marks the point in the history of my painting career where they have become a re-occurring symbol in my work. They represent our ascension, always climbing upwards, for Pearl; it was into the mystical Fairie realm. 

 So Pearl, not only have you had records selling gold, platinum and triple platinum, people in Hollywood are making movies about you. Your “Greatest Hits” LP is still on the top of the charts on Billboard, several TV. Documentaries have been made on you, and you still have huge fan clubs to this day. Girl, you have people who love and care about you and who have helped you reach higher realms of Spirit where you are free to make love and give love and receive love and have your love received. You are not a lost little girl anymore. Thank you for always honoring rebellion and giving me such inspiration. Your body had died by the time I’d found you, but you’re Spirit is very much alive and I know you are finding your ascension transcended.