#eventually i wanna paint this design but that's for future mj

[neathyingenue]

Drew this a while ago but just now getting to post it!! Here's a sketch of Silvia's Parabola reflection. I'm calling her "the Daffodil Maiden." For an overexplanation of the Yucatec Maya, Welsh, Spanish, English, and Catholic visual references-- look below the cut :)

Also I *am* working on the OC gouache portraits (got one done and two sketched out) but my hip is injured or something?? making sitting down painful so I can't paint :/ As soon as I can, I will get to work on those again!

The majority of the reflection's garment is based on the huipil of the Yucatec Maya, specifically the versions worn in the jarada, the national folk dance of Belize. Silvia's is embroidered with daffodils, the national flower of Wales. The flared hem is ruffled and gathered, trimmed with ribbon, a nod to European textiles/sewing techniques and Spanish folk-dance costumes. The ribbon sash thing is also part of the jarada costume--here I want it to constrict Silvia a bit.

The long unstyled hair is taken from the pre-Raphaelite painters, who depicted idealized versions of Victorian youthful femininity. Specifically I'm thinking of Waterhouse's 'Lady of Shalott,' because that poem is about a mirror and a forbidden glimpse of a desired reality. It's too perfect for Parabola! The halo, though, moves us into the more austere Catholic ideal of the virgin saint, most notably Mary the mother of Jesus.

I specifically took inspiration from the Virgin of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico and the Americas, who legend states appeared to an Indigenous peasant, St. Juan Pablo. There is a lot of debate among Latin Americans about how the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe should be interpreted. Is her apparition the Church's attempt to redirect and control Indigenous goddess-worship? Or does it represent an important step toward inclusion in Christianity for Mary to appear to an oppressed non-white person? Does she represent colonial control, or the resistance to it? Although Silvia was never Catholic, Catholicism is one of the most recognizable impacts of Spain's colonialism in the Americas, so I wanted to visually depict that tension in this design.

The daffodil rod references iconography of St. Joseph, Mary's husband. Legend states that his walking-stick flowered with lilies to show everyone that he would be Mary's husband and Jesus's legal father. Joseph is the patron saint of fathers, immigrants, exiles, and workers, so that's also relevant to Silvia's backstory.

With this design, I'm trying to convey Silvia's complicated relationship to her cultural identities, as well as her deep desire to be seen as morally pure and good. I think she would be uncomfortable with how European and maidenly her reflection is--because it would force her to confront the fact that her moral code, no matter how radical, still smacks of European philosophy and Catholic ideals of "purity."