Exempt Me

This piece was made intuitively, with almost no initial planning. With her underwater robes, inhibiting shells, bare torso, and samurai skirt, she is an Aphrodite warrior, bound by her feminine attributes, but also dignified in her effort to be honorable, and to be more than just fertility and nourishment. She is clearly tenacious in her fallen state, but, in her humanity, she does plead: this is so hard, help me stand or let me be.  Does this make her less than brave?  The title was determined on remembering the last lines of a favorite Lawrence Durrell poem (Egyptian Poem), “Exempt me. I have friends in the underworld.”