Altered Red Torso Assemblage "The Archangel"

Here's the latest torso I've been working on, I'm not sure what I'll title it yet. It's changed a lot from my original ideas of things I was going to do to it. I may add something more to it?

This is a full size torso, which I gessoed, added various materials to it to give it texture, metal screen material, fabric screen, plaster strips, a few pages from a hymnal and then decoupaged with red tissue paper. I added several coats of dark walnut stain over that to get it to match the head. The head used to hold a clock, I added decoupaged arms to it, a picture of Mona Kasey for the face, (It's my daughter with a Mona Lisa smile).

There is a beaded snake belt which I made into a necklace that wraps around her neck and down the front.

Wings on the back are also part of it. The torso also has 6 coats of polycrylic, the head portion has about 3 coats.


**Addition to this Post**
I've decided to title this torso "The Archangel".
The Archangels are the messengers, delivering heavenly decrees to earthbound mortals. Archangels are held in highest regard, due to their closeness and service to us. Angels are the very most accessible to humankind, and indeed, are the nearest thing to being human yet having angelic qualities. These are the Guardian Angels and the Guiding Angels, God's workhorses of the earth.

The snake in this piece is symbolic of temptation, "The Archangel" helps humankind use their freewill to make wise choices, to resist temptations that would draw us away from God.

While the snake is often used to symbolize evil, the snake has both positive and negative images. For example, in the Garden of Eden there are two trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Symbolically the tree of life holds the world together in harmony and represents truth. The other tree gives the temptation of body, of earthly things, and discord. A duality between harmony and disharmony, good and bad, truth and lies is present.

The snake should not be seen as a tool of evil, but a tool of good, which was created by God and which taught humankind the notion of choices, of the duality of this world of two opposites, life and death, happiness and sadness. The snake therefore is a symbol to which we must work to rise above the material to a wider and higher knowledge of the world, and to draw closer to the Lover of our soul, closer to God.

The head piece of "The Archangel" once housed a clock, a symbol of time. This Archangel is not confined by time, unlike humans, who, while living in time, were meant for eternity.