The Lady of Shalott

coloured pencil on 140lb, D'Arches hot press watercolour paper, 22x28 inches

This painting is available for purchase at the Collector's Gallery, Lexington, KY.

"The mirror crack'd from side to side
'The curse is come upon me!'
cried the Lady of Shalott"
Tennyson

This painting is of the moment in Tennyson's Lady of Shalott when she gazes directly upon Lancelot instead of viewing him in the mirror, At this moment, the curse that bound her is invoked, and she is on an inescapable path to death.
My view of her fate is altogether different from the one held by the Victorians. In this version, the Lady of Shalott would rather live a very brief life that was truly hers than to be a slave to the illusions in the mirror. Though the time left to her will not last long, she in a sense is now truly free because now her life is lived directly and not vicariously.