Lilith Rising

This was my mother's experimentation with the idea of 'dark knowledge.' But her cheerfulness and optimism touches the painting deeply.

Poppies (flowers of opium, mad dreams, and the memories of dead soldiers) grow in a graveyard. Under the light of a black moon, one blooms to reveal the dark child Lilith. Some might think her the soul of evil, but to my mother there is an impish innocence to her. Though her expression is somewhat malign, winged black kittens swarm around her.

At the edge of the cemetery, an old woman stares reverently at Lilith. Her neat, tidy clothes suggest that she's a 'good' person, a church-goer. The sort of person who 'ought' to see Lilith as pure evil. Yet her hands clasp a black serpent, symbol of the Goddess and dark wisdom. Suggesting that the divide between old and new, young and elderly, isn't as great as it first appears.