Sharada Navratri, nine nights (ten days) which celebrates the many faces of the goddess, is a post monsoon season autumn Hindu festival which often falls in the Western calendar months of September-October.  MahaDurgha is honored in the Durgha puja, and stories of the battles are told and of course, the victory of good over evil is celebrated.
I took liberties to honor the Goddess in any form, not just the Hindu manifestations.

I am working slow due to this depression, but finishing these goddesses helped a little.

Venus of Willendorf is a four-inch, palm-sized, figure carved from oolitic limestone, tinted with red ochre, and I have a lovely replica of her that I found in a museum shop years ago.  Archaeologists estimate her to be 30,000 years old. She was found near Willendorf in Austria, hence her name.

I have painted her many times, and have scribbled her ion paper at least one other time (see below).  and once I painted her HUGE, and that is the purple painting below which hangs outside my studio door.  I also think of her as the bee-headed goddess, though I have never read anything like that.

I idolized the Virgin Mary growing up.  Not much else stuck from the catholic church, but my love for the Madonna stayed, and I always lit candles under her statue in the mission.  I have a Lalique statue of her given to me at my first communion; this was my model!

I painted her one other time, right, early on when I was learning watercolors, overlayering them on water-soluble pencils on the worst card stock ever!  I’ve learned so much!

I call this one Lady Madonna, and heard the Beatles song in my head when I was sketching her, over and over… I wasn’t that fond of it but the refrain stuck!

Navratri may be spelled in other forms, as it is a transliteration: Nauratri, Navarathri, Navaratra, Navratam, Nauratam or Naraate.  It literally translates as “nine days”.

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