Goddesses

Book excerpt: "I had a small shack in field next to the alder grove when I lived in Muir Beach. We called it the Goddess Factory. This was my studio where I printed so many of my Goddesses. It became the theme of my major work. People always ask me, "Why do you paint Goddesses?" I used to say, "Because I was born as a woman." Now I know that the time we live in needs much more femininity. In order to know that part of myself, I kept creating; big, small, medium Goddesses. Like the Buddhist bodhisattva images that I created, they reflect what I was experiencing or struggling with at the time in my life, sometimes gentleness, sometimes clarity. I was inspired by all Goddesses from many civilizations, not just Buddhist or Japanese." Mayumi Oda's biography of growing up in Japan and becoming an artist in the United States. This book is written bilingually in Japanese and in English with 33 colored illustrations.