Red Matryoshkas

The matryoshka (commonly known as Russian nesting dolls) has a place in my family's ethnic history as well as some religious identification.  They are a symbol of the generations of women before and after us, and our place in that line. A nod to motherhood and the continuation of women, but also as a reminder of all the stages of life we as individuals also experience. We are born, we grow into childhood, we explore young adulthood, we engage with our adult lives, we work for our own children, we learn the deep lessons of the connectedness of Life, and we see with wisdom in our older years.  For women, the flow of our cycles and the nature of our life giving bodies have a focal point in all of it. 

Recently I have been thinking about my own issues/difficulties with generation-al-ness (just made up that word), working on this graphic was a kind of meditation for me. But not an intellectual musing -- through art I can be more open to letting an idea sit, and wait for the right wisdom to come to me. No doubt this will be a theme worthy of consideration and a focal point through all the different phases of my life.  I look forward to passing on the richness of the matryoshka to my daughters.

Of course, I had to make several variations of it. I love the symbolic visual simplicity of it, and find it a powerful reminder of our connection in the line of womanhood.















I was grateful to find that the original artist (who I have sadly lost touch with) let me play around with the image and re-create a digital image of my own to use. I, too, make these images available for others to use: These artworks are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.