MEDUSA, at peace.

HER BODY, MADE A TOOL TO HARVEST FEASTS
TO SATIATE THE NEEDS OF MEN SHE’D MEET
SO FRIENDS DID WEAVE TO A WRITHING WREATH
TO PLUCK THEM FROM HER SERPENTS TEETH

Medusa was a virgin priestess to Athena, the Goddess of wisdom and battle. Poseidon, a rival of Athena saw Medusa and noticed her beauty. Wishing to
humiliate Athena through Medusa, Poseidon assaulted her on the steps of the temple where she worshipped. Athena cursed Medusa for Poseidon’s act and she was exiled to an island and morphed into a monstrous creature. Her curse meant that any man who once would have looked at her for her beauty now turned to stone.

Years later, and after many men became stone statutes in Medusa’s garden, Perseus came to the island. Using a bronze shield from Athena, he slaughtered Medusa to use her head to terrify enemies in battle.

Somehow, even in the modern age, her name  exemplifies evil. In her life, her body was abused for pleasure and in her death, her body was used as a tool for war. MEDUSA reimagines her as a holy woman, shrouded in the same glory reserved for the innocent and martyred. As a testament to women misunderstood or misremembered in the tides of history, Medusa re-told as a story of an innocent woman condemned is a gentle correction of interpretation.

_{Pierre Noire, pencil, and ink on paper.}