“Penelope’s Girdle” was inspired by Homer’s Odyssey. It is a series of horizontal color woodcuts, printed by the artist. Two poems also based on the Odyssey are incorporated within a handmade presentation box.

In the Odyssey, Penelope, wife of Odysseus, yearns for his return for 20 years. To delay suitors vying to marry her, she pretends to be weaving a shroud for her father Laertes – telling the suitors that she cannot marry until the shroud is finished. She weaves and then unweaves so as never to finish the shroud.

My version is titled “Penelope’s Girdle” – I change the shroud to a girdle (belt) that can be woven to a great length. Length becomes Time. I color the girdle (I think a shroud would have been white). And I add poems about Penelope written by living female poets.