I was wanting to work again with the ogee grid (see In Iraq). First I laid in the grid pattern and colored the outlining bands with transparent rainbow colors.

Then I chose random areas and painted some of them with flat grays of different values to get a movement of light and dark around the canvas. I picked one ogee shape at a time and painted in it whatever came to mind.

At first, it seemed that most of the images were female, such as

• the pink labia/vulva forms (a tribute to Judy Chicago)
• the baby in utero
• the Virgin of the Andes (the red mountain with the madonna's face and hands--a reference to Pachamama, the earth mother of the Incas), and
• the three women in a tub.

The last is an image I had been wanting to paint for a long time. It's a tribute to three women who were very important in my life, along with their attributes--

1. Susana Guevara Mueller, my Chilean art teacher, holding a paintbrush and a stone
2. My mother, Virginia Badger, with a succulent and a trowel
3. Betty Hayward, a dear friend, with a weaving shuttle and a book.

It's based on santos paintings I'd seen in New Mexico many years ago showing the Trinity as three men in a tub.

My choices expanded and I included personal dream images (such as the Pod of Children), some abstract patterns, and symbols and images that I love from cultures around the world.

For example, the corn people come from an Aztec or Maya drawing that I'd found in a book on corn.