Defiant Janet
This week I’ve changed focus a little bit. Instead of giving you the background behind one of my still available pieces, I’m going to tell you a bit about one I already sold.
Defiant Janet was inspired by “The Ballad of Tam Lin”. It’s my favorite of the Child Ballads, a collection of stories, because it shows just how strong women can be.
In the ballad Tam Lin is rescued by his pregnant lover, Janet, from the Faery Queen. Janet was adventurous. After meeting Tam Lin in the woods she became pregnant. Her father is upset when realizes his unmarried daughter is pregnant. Unmarried pregnancies were seen as an embarrassment and the woman was quickly married off (shotgun wedding way before the invention of shotguns). Janet refuses to marry a knight in her father’s hall, an unconventional stance for a woman at the time. Instead, she goes to see if there is any way to have Tam Lin as her husband. When her lover admits there is a way, Janet becomes determined to save him. At nine months pregnant she wrestles Tam Lin who was transformed into first a lion, then a serpent. She had to hang onto him until he became a man once more, freeing him from the Faerie Queen.
Even though the ballad is named after Tam Lin, Janet is the main character. The action is driven by her. It takes Janet’s determination to defy her fate to free Tam from his. Janet’s story is one of courage, defiance, and determination
Defiant Janet shows Janet as she wrestles the transforming Tam Lin. She is staring over Tam Lin’s head protectively as she clutches him to her. This is the first piece I made that focused more on expressing the emotions I associate with a particular story. The style and technique I developed working on this piece heavily influenced my later pieces like Adrift Sedna, Medusa, and next week’s focus piece Icarus Triumphant. Defiant Janet didn’t just influence my technique. Like Pandora’s Hope the story inspiring it’s creation was about a strong female figure. Showing those figures in mythology in a new light inspired most of my Mythology and Legend series.
