The New Face of Pandora's Compass

What's the best you can hope for in creating an image to represent your newly forming holistic identity? How about having one of your best friends, who is also a phenomenal artist create an image that perfectly represents what you've envisioned? Well that's exactly what happened to this lucky girl.

Joan Koester who is my beloved friend of 14 years is an amazingly gifted artist. Her work features a range of mediums including paint and graphite and the subject matter varies from expressive human form and faces to animals and natural settings. Her art is ever changing. Always flowing with what is moving her at the time. My favorites are those of female faces with quiet, contemplative smiles. The women, in particular, always seem to have a beautiful strength. The other side of her work also has a marvelous humor. I have to laugh when I come across the occasional "mad dog" when looking through her portfolio.

There's a little back-story behind the new lovely image that I am honored to have representing Pandora's Compass. It involves manifesting and allowing the Universe to provide. It's also a lesson following your own intuition and being open to receive.

As I was pondering a visual to represent Pandora's Compass, I spent a lot of time online looking at images of Pandora, stories and even tried my hand at drawing something myself since I am a graphic designer. But comically and perhaps sadly, I am not really a fan of my own drawing style.

So about two weeks prior, I said to my friend Marie, "You know what would be perfect? I would LOVE to have Joan draw something for me. Her style is exactly what I'm looking for." Marie encouraged me to ask but I did not feel that I should. I remembered several years ago, Joan mentioned that, in general, she didn't care for trying to create work that she wasn't feeling drawn to create. She is more of a spontaneous artist. So I of course wanting to honor the way an artist works, said to Marie, "Maybe the perfect image already exists in her portfolio." I checked on her Facebook fan page and she had a couple beautiful choices that I was instantly enamored with. And this was just small representation of her portfolio.

Joan and I later had lunch with some friends and she graciously said that I could use one of her images and we made plans for me to look through her portfolio soon. I shared with her what I was looking for which was a loving, woman with some sort of earth gift or spirit.

New Year's day in the evening, we got together to watch The Secret again. She brought her work and I looked through it unable to choose because I loved so many. Then we got to the image you now see in my blog. She explained she'd been thinking about Pandora and had drawn three versions. They were all beautiful. I ended up purchasing three different images. I couldn't help myself.

So in the end, the perfect thing that I had hoped for in the very beginning manifested. A beautiful drawing of Pandora from my beloved friend. And from her side, she had been hoping for some extra money to come her way. She wanted to purchase some equipment for her computer. So she had also manifested what she needed as well.

It was a great beginning to the new year. Both of us feeling revitalized with a new sense of resolve all over again from watching The Secret. Art, abundance, successful manifesting and a nice cup of hot peach tea with my dear friend. Now what could be better than that?

If you would like to see more samples of Joan Koester's amazing artwork, please check out her Facebook Fan Page.