Mollie is the winner of the Moon Altar: Artistic Excellence Award. Her altar is a 24 x 48 inch/61 x 122 centimeter poster that she created using a variety of materials. She began by using a flattened cardboard box, which functions as the base and that's been glued together using Mod Podge, a combination glue, sealer, and varnish.
From there, Mollie created a galactic-themed background using blue and pink paper that she subsequently spattered with blue, pink, and white oil paints, markers, glitter, and Mod Podge. Initially, the poster featured the solar system in the center (see first image above), but it evolved to have a hand-drawn image of the Earth in the center (image immediately above). Mollie says she loved the original stencil but that it wasn't quite right and she felt that putting the Earth in the center made more sense.
Next, to create the silhouette of the pine trees and the bears, she used stencils to cut the shapes out of different types of paper, darkening them in with a paint marker and then gluing them down onto the poster. She used 13 "Spirit Bears" dusted with silver on their backs in the inner ring to represent the 13 moons in a calendar year as well as the universe itself.
Her next step was to add an outer ring showing the 28 moon phases (representing the daily changes in Grandmother Moon throughout a whole monthly cycle).
"I originally reviewed a Google image of the moon phases to visualize how to represent the waxing and waning moon," she explains. "Next, I used a lid to cut out 28 white circles, which I then selectively colored with black marker to show the light and dark sections. Ironically, before I could get them all glued down in the correct order, a gust of wind blew all the moon-phase images onto the floor. I went back to my Google image to put them into the correct order again before gluing them down. This approach really helped me learn because I had to make the moons myself and then put them in the right order and trust that I would be able to draw a little bit more of the moon or the shadow on each piece."
"My art process is mostly to allow Great Spirit to guide me with what I should be learning and then an image just starts to appear in my mind and I have to create it," Mollie explains. "My whole goal with art is to create what I'm learning about different spiritual concepts in a symbolic visual form. I spent an entire day working on this piece and it just kind of created itself. I really am in love with how it came to be." In fact, she says that once she'd cut out and glued down the pieces for her moon altar poster, she couldn't help but continue on with her next art piece -- this one with the Earth(s) circling the Sun.
After completing that poster, she followed it up by creating a third poster of the 12 sun signs, constellations, and astrological symbols.
"I'm making so much art these days that I've had to start stacking them up and that's just part of my art process, to play around with it, and display it, and stare at it a lot, especially after I've just made it," she notes.
Mollie currently works with her moon altar by focusing on it and trancing out. She feels it will continue to teach her to ground her body by what she sees in the night sky as the moon changes phases. "This seems to be a deeper learning we all can have," she adds. "I like to have an artistic visual to reflect on the beauty of the natural world around me and the lessons I am learning."
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