The Creation of Ganesh

This here is “Creation of Ganesh”, for a gallery show on “Tales from India” in BYU’s library. It’s photoshop, and it was suuuuch a fun piece to do. I had so many learning experiences, too!

Quick summary of the story behind this piece: Parvati (not shown) wanted to take a bath, so she created a little man out of white mud to protect her. He (Ganesh) was instructed to not let ANYONE into the bathhouse. So along comes Shiva (blue god), wanting to see Parvati, and Ganesh wouldn't let him through. Angry, Shiva cut off Ganesh's head. Parvati was FURIOUS, as any woman who just basically created a son would be if her husband chopped off his head, and demanded Shiva find a worthy replacement. To be worthy, the head had to be facing north, and the first individual facing north that Shiva found was an elephant. So in this scene, we see Shiva, attaching the elephant head to Ganesh's body, thus creating the God Ganesh.

A lot of my best friends from high school are Hindu, so I was thrilled to hear about this show and do a piece from it. Ganesh was always my favorite Hindu god, so I knew I wanted to do his story right away. And I showed this to one of said Hindu friends, by the way: she LOVED it. She said that Shiva is never portrayed this way, but it totally makes sense. Parvati totally wore the pants in the relationship, so of course he'd be terrified to see if it would work! And that is exaaactly what I was going for. Not commonly portrayed, but still respectful and still super accurate.

If you happen to be at BYU anytime in the next few weeks, come check this out! This is the first time I'm in a specific gallery show at school besides the "Freshman Core Show", where I had a whopping 3 pieces. But since this one was themed, it feels a little more...elite.

(which is totally silly, because EVERYONE in my class "got in" to this show, since my teacher's the one hosting it, and that freshman show was actually competitive.)

Anywaaay, the show's on the second floor of the Harold B. Lee Library, down the hall towards the family history center. There are two classes participating and a whole breadth of talents displayed. It's a fun, iiitty bitty show! And you can see this same piece, but behind glass and a frame instead of a computer screen!