Projects > MIDNIGHT SUN

colored pencil drawing by Julie McNiel
Bluebeard's Daughter and Her Pollywogs
colored pencil on manila paper
36 x 24"
2012

One of a trio that includes Morrigan and Pirate Queen, this drawing features a female masked divinity, one of the Glanic Mothers, that protected the Gallic river god Glan, and presumably the celtic peoples that settled alongside the spring-fed river. They believed in it's healing properties. Today, Glanum is an archaeological site, formerly somewhat overlooked but was important enough in 2nd century BCE to have had possibly 5000 inhabitants. In my drawing, as in others in this series, there is Greek script, which was in use by the Gauls, and a frottage of Aramaic and English, all stirred within the mother's many womb-like bowls. One of the bowls features a portrait of Bluebeard's daughter.