Acrylic paint on 16×20 canvas panel

This art composition is based on an art style called surrealism. The dictionary defines surrealism as a 20th century literary and artistic movement that attempts to express the working of the subconscious by imagery and strange combinations of subject matter. Simply, it is using dream imagery to show inner workings of the mind.

My composition expresses my love for two of my favorite ballets. In homage to the pima ballerinas, a lone ballerina on point represents both dancers. The northern lights, actual name is Aurora Borealis, represents Princess Aurora in “Sleeping Beauty.,” She lights the sky over a crowned swan, representing, Princess Odette in her swan form swimming on the lake of tears.

Envy and jealousy play dark roles in both stories and is enhanced by spells casted by evil sorcery. Odette is held captive and lives in human form by night and as a swan on the lake of tears by day because of envy to want what someone possesses. Though being tragic, true love leads to forgiveness and truth prevails in the end. Sleeping Beauty’s Aurora is a princess given gifts of beauty, love and long life by good fairies invited to the celebration. But when one fairy is excluded from the guest list, she allows her jealousy to prevail and takes vengeance by casting a death spell on Aurora. But good offset the evil spell of death when the fairies cast a spell of a one-hundred-year sleep on Aurora’s 16th birthday that preserves her and the whole palace until a prince’s kiss will awake her.

The moral speaks to being left out, intentionally or otherwise, from the party or celebration, on school playgrounds, playing games, is exclusion. So is stopping someone from sitting at your table in the school cafeteria. So is stopping someone from being friends with a person you don’t like. It hurts. Exclusion is the opposite of inclusion where all are included. These stories, if read in their entirety, remind us how to be a team player, and to find remedies to help everyone feel welcomed. There is one thing that yields the right result and that is “philia” love. Philia, in Greek means, wanting what’s best for someone in friendship. For if we do the right thing, good will triumph over bad.