What comes to mind when you hear “Aquarius”? I asked this question of several friends and family members as I prepared to paint the eleventh card in my zodiac series.
The answer every single person gave me was simply this: water. Nothing more, nothing less. Unlike all of the other astrological signs, this one had no particular image associated with it. Once I did some research, I figured out why. The myth goes that Zeus looked down from heaven and saw a beautiful naked boy carrying water in an urn. Zeus immediately fell in love, so he transformed himself into a large bird and whisked the boy away to the heavens, assigning him the role of “water bearer” for eternity. To make things even more nebulous, I found out Aquarius is an air sign, not a water sign. Huh?
I decided to skip some of the more unethical parts of the story and instead painted a Grecian urn overflowing with water. I think the final result is something that works with the rest of my zodiac series while still making a reference to the original myth.
Time to celebrate the Age of Aquarius!
