Prosperity Soup to be Eaten in the Dark

I'm catching up on some stuff. I had said that I wouldn't say anything about the collaboration for a while, and so I didn't. But now I really need to catch up, or things are going to start changing in my head and I'm going to lose track of what's going on.

This was exchange #1 with Artist X that was due early Feb. We exchanged images but each kept our originals. And as it turned out, I wasn't quite done with it...two issues—it still needed to be mounted, and I wasn't sure what was happening yet with the flower-tiger transition. And now a month later, it still needs to be mounted (which is not entirely my fault), and therefore, I've not finished it. (That the flower-tiger transition looks like a doily or a saddle is waiting to be fixed.)

Anyhow, here's how it evolved over the days that I worked on it. Freshly off my Superfoodland! game piece, I was still thinking about wealth, status, and their relationship to what we eat, and so I'm still on that topic here:







In our chat, it was interesting to hear Artist X's take on it. It was actually very similar although from a different angle—that of male dominance and power. All those things are related, and tiger's penis as aphrodisiac is directly about male power. The interesting thing is that Artist X did not know it was a tiger penis that was stabbing the tiger in the back when she saw it as about male power.

So the details—peony, a symbol of prosperity; I also wanted the stylized stamen to look like the oil that floats on top of a bowl of soup. (I love the patterns you can make playing with the oil on broth.) The tiger penis is stabbing the tiger in the back, although several people I showed it to thought I should make that more obvious.

So, that's where I am with this piece.

(Oh yeah, and on Wed, I picked up the panels I ordered, so will be able to mount this piece soon.)