A Facebook friend went to Tunisia and took lots of photos. Several were of what I know as the Hand of Fatima, which is also called a Hamsa. The hand, which is shown pointing down more often than it points up, is a symbol of protection in the Middle East, for Jews and Muslims alike. I’ve loved that imagery for decades so I decided to see what Midjourney might come up with.
The results were mixed. I’ve never seen a Hand of Fatima that looks like the one above, but I love the colors and texture. I also like the graffitied, distressed background — despite the fact that I am really not sure how it came to be. (I secretly suspect Midjourney’s AI works, at least in part, by keeping track of what its users like. It’s undeniable that I like grunge.)
At the same time, I was thinking about Native American petroglyphs that show a spiral in the middle of a human hand, so I asked for “illustration of palm with spiral in the middle, southwestern style.” I ended up with the image above and realized I had to specify an actual human hand, not merely a palm.
Finally I got something close to what I wanted even though, in my mind, the image above looks more like a tarot card than a petroglyph. (I like it a lot.)
I continued further in the same direction and the results got even grungier. I’ve noticed before that Midjourney generally doesn’t want to make spirals. Somewhat disconcertingly, the image above looks more like it incorporates a bullseye than a spiral.
Several of the hands Midjourney coughed up failed to include the top of the middle finger so I asked it to zoom out a bit, hoping to get a complete hand. But strange things often happen when Midjourney zooms out and the image above was no exception. Hand of Fatima imagery often includes an eye within the hand and, although I’d never seen anything that looked quite like this, I liked it in a weird way. I can only guess that the eye is warding off evil — lots of it, if its size is any indication.
I eventually tired of making hands and wondered how the same style would look with butterflies.
I liked the effect even more than I’d guessed I would.
Interesting & unusual!