Wooden Ganesha

This little wooden statue seemed to jump out at me when I first saw it. Which is strange, because it was surrounded by about three thousand other little wooden statues. It was in Bali, in a shop in Ubud, I think, though I can’t be sure. It must have been almost ten years ago. It is a Ganesha, and he is cradling a pot. His expression and the way his body is draped would suggest that the pot contains something jolly; I just like the way he looks. Religious iconography more often underlines the distant majesty of our deities. This lighthearted rendering points to the gentle humanity of this particular deity, and of Bali itself.