Heil Hitler or Hail Mary? (how's that for a headline?)

The image of Nissa Berbawy (pictured below) reaching up towards the camera was the subject matter for a life-size painting I did for painting I. Unfortunately, after completing much of the project, it was brought to my attention that she looked like a Hitler youth and she had the whole "heil Hitler" thing going on. While this was definately not my intention, the humor/misfortune of the dilemma is only enhanced when one takes into account that I am from North Idaho, known primarily throughtout the country for potatoes and arian nation parades. Oops, that piece of info could be a mukraker's goldmine if me and my portrait of a superior race ever graduated to the status of contraversial in the public eye.
For this project I took a mold of Nissa's forearm and hand so that I could attach it to the panel and make it so that she was actually reaching out to the viewer. My reasoning was that I could thus portray a creation reaching out to its creator, but instead it looks more like the symbol of loyalty to a tyrant.
If only this was the end of the accidental symbolism that occured in painting I this spring. My friend Amy also caused quite a stir with the content of her painting project. When you read this you'll wonder how she ever could miss the symbolism, but it snuck past all of us until we gazed upon it the last day of class when it was fully assembled. She basically had the mother Mary stepping out of a stained glass window, coming to life and coming towards you(it was actually 3D so she really was coming at you!). Amy was trying to show that religion is something that is alive and can't be contained in a church, which was a really good idea, but it definately was upstaged by the obvious connotations about the catholic church and incarnations of Mary. She would've used Jesus coming out of the window, but He would not have made a very colorful composition, as He is usually only wearing a white robe with a red sash. Anyway, it was pretty funny setting those two paintings up next to eachother and it was especially funny setting them up facing eachother which made my misrepresented painting go from "heil Hitler" to "Hail Mary". The moral of this story is that if ever you are contemplating creating a composition with a message, make sure that it is clear from any pop-symbolism which will most definately steal your thunder.
The other pictures are of Christina and I exploring the historical significance of Spangle Washington (notice the bullet holes in the stop sign), and of us traversing the skywalk labrynth of downtown Spokane.