Contemporary Art

The Great Goddess Series
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I began this painting series, "The Great Goddess", after reading Marija Gimbutas book, The Language of the Goddess. Dr. Gimbutas is a Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at UCLA. In the introduction to her book, Joseph Campbell writes that her findings on the Great Goddess were the most important contribution to archaeology in modern history.
Who then is the Great Goddess?

She is the primary symbol of divinity existing for over 100,000 years prior to Judeo-Christian thought, which James Joyce called "the nightmare of the last 5,000 years." The Goddess was a female pregnant with life as opposed to the icon of a male god being tortured to death on a cross.



The Great Goddess Series
When God was a Woman (II) 30" x 40"

The Great Goddess Series
When God was a Woman (I) 30" x 40"


This Garden of Eden concept of peace and harmony was interrupted by the Indo-Europeans bringing rape, war, and murder by nomadic tribes. Dr. Gimbutas said her research "found uniformly a life affirming belief system of peace and harmony as opposed to later Indo-European belief systems which created fortifications and weapons of war. A savage warrior culture rooted in a male based god."

The Goddess worship brought a cosmology of joyous expecta¬tion. The universe was forever giving in its abundance. The earth was pregnant. The woman was pregnant. The Goddess was abundant. The great abundant life-giver. The earth, the plants, the animals were holy. The holiest there was. Creation was the eternal feminine as its source.




The Great Goddess Series
When God was a Woman (III) 30" x 40"

The divine feminine presented problems to the Catholic Church as humanity always required the presence of a bountiful and merciful deity who would listen to its prayers and offer solace in times of need.

Mary became the vehicle by which the Goddess could once more take form. The black Virgin is still worshipped today in many parts of Europe. She is interpreted as waiting, fertile black earth or the deepest recesses of the cave, womb¬like and unrevealed. She is abundant, fertile, and capable of giving birth, but like her dark sister Kalistie can devour her chil¬dren and dance upon the bodies of the dead.

I use a number of her sacred forms in my paintings: the snake, the cow, the sow, number thirteen, sun, moon, death, rebirth, vagina. Many of her icons became demonized in later male based religions as an attempt to obliterate a religion based on the feminine.

The Great Goddess Series
Creation  30" x 40"

The Great Goddess Series
Composition #305  60" x 90"

The vagina represented the first rite of passage of all beings. Life begins in the womb and ends between the thighs of the Great Mother. The vagina was worshipped as an object of great mystery. The place of birth and the place of death were one and the same, symbolically. The vagina under a male based god became a source of evil.

The Great Goddess Series
The Great Goddess  72" x 72"

The cow and sow were worshipped for their giving of the life nourishing milk to humanity. A vestige of this concept still remains in India today with the sacred cow.

The number thirteen was sacred to a culture based on agriculture and a moon based calendar. This number was later made "unlucky" in the later male religions.

The snake and bird were two of her most important symbols. A seminal symbol of life energy. The energy itself was worshipped. The spiraling of the energy was the energy of the Goddess. She was life itself, appearing in the Spring. She was immortal by her ability to shed her skin. A transformation. In Genesis, the snake was transformed into a liar, leading to the downfall of humanity.

The Goddess of Death. The dead are returned to the earth for a rebirth as part of the cyclical rhythm of nature. Judeo-Christian death was, by contrast, an eternal judgment rather than rebirth. Heaven was ruled by the masculine. Death came to be feared as something "out there". A threat of eternal damnation.

Goddess ritual began with "you shall be free" and further stated, "all pleasures are my rituals". This concept had to be obliterated in the newer religions and punishable by Hell.
Thus, the Goddess became profane and hell was where the male god worship placed her-the dark room tomb of the unconscious. Therefore, the cyclical rhythm of the earth itself then could be destroyed, raped, subdued, silenced and enslaved.

A systematic attempt over the centuries was made to destroy the worship of the Great Goddess. Lofty temples were placed over her holy places of nature and healing waters, her sacred earth based rites were turned into holidays, priestesses of holy temples were replaced by priests, and beginning in the 13th century, the great burnings of wise women as witches began as an attempt to destroy the last vestiges of Goddess worship. Millions of women were burned to death.

Dr. Gimbutas concluded by stating that, "The era of the feminine which was life affirming and celebratory to the horrific burning times took many centuries. The Goddess went from a supreme Goddess to a subservient being made of the rib of man. The attitude today is reflected in the disrespect of the planet and denigration of the feminine.”

"We have come to the end of the world. If we don't change we will perish. We have become rapiers and exploiters of the earth. Once upon a time in distant memory, we knew how to live in balance and harmony. The return of the Goddess is a signal that if we wish a life on earth, we must find that balance."

      - Dr. Marija Gimbutas -

The Taoist exaltation of the restorative powers of the Goddess and Nature is best expressed in the Tao Te Ching:

The Valley Spirit never dies.

It is named the Mysterious Feminine.

And the doorway of the Mysterious Feminine
is the base from which Heaven and Earth sprang.

It is there within us all the while.

Draw upon it as you will, it never runs dry.

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