The Great Project

The Great Project is the extensive, illustrated record of Reverend Foster’s life tattooed across Patricia Paiwonski’s body. Created over time by her husband, George, it transforms skin into both religious chronicle and public testimony: Patricia can display its scenes to explain Fosterite belief, and the images make her a recognizable attraction wherever she performs. The work is not simply decoration. It bears the history of a movement on the body of one of its devoted members, joining faith, personal identity, and the practical demands of her livelihood.

A sacred history on skin

Patricia introduces the tattoos as pictures meant to be looked at and studied. The sequence begins beneath her chin with Foster’s birth, attended by angels, then follows his first miracle: as a schoolboy, he restores a bird injured by another student. The images are dated to mark events in the prophet’s life, making the body a chronologically arranged record rather than a collection of unrelated designs.

George had to work with the skin Patricia already had. She explains that she and her husband were both sinners when they began the project, and that she was already considerably tattooed. He incorporated existing images into the sacred narrative, turning “The Attack on Pearl Harbor” into “Armageddon” and the “Skyline of New York” into “The Holy City.” The need to find enough bare skin also meant that the episodes do not proceed in a simple, uninterrupted sequence: George had to move around the available space to record each milestone.

The later scenes follow Foster into public conflict. One shows him preaching outside the theological seminary that rejected him, an episode Patricia identifies as his first arrest and the beginning of the Persecution. Around her body and along her spine, the story continues with Foster smashing idolatrous images, his imprisonment beneath a sacred light, and the Faithful Few breaking him out and punishing the judge who had confined him. The pictures turn the history of persecution and rescue into a visible, embodied account of Fosterite identity.

Witness, performance, and recognition

The tattoos have a public function as well as a devotional one. Patricia explains their scenes to Jill and Mike and insists that the images speak for themselves when her own words are not enough. In her traveling work, Fosterite congregations welcome her as an attraction; she may spend much of an evening letting members examine the pictures. At some services, she performs the story of Eve and the serpent with her boa, Honey Bun, while a local participant plays Adam. The church’s interpretation of the episode then becomes part of the gathering’s religious entertainment.

The images also help establish Patricia’s standing among Fosterites. She says that members of the church bear tattoos, though not necessarily an extensive pictorial work like hers. Incorporated into one of her pictures is Foster’s holy kiss, a mark placed by Foster himself and designed by George so that it could be mistaken for part of the scene. Patricia has kept it concealed from people who do not bear the corresponding mark, and its presence is important to her as evidence of a personal connection to the church’s founder.

That distinction between visible image and restricted sign shapes how the body functions as testimony. The Great Project invites public attention, while the holy kiss remains a private token Patricia chooses to disclose. Her church also verifies her membership through fingerprints checked against its records, rather than treating a tattoo alone as proof of identity. The images therefore make faith legible without, by themselves, granting access to every level of the religious community.

The artwork and Patricia’s identity

When Patricia asks Mike to look at her rather than at the pictures, his response distinguishes the person from the work without dismissing either. He mentally removes the tattoos and recognizes that they are peculiarly hers: they set her apart and make her a self. He has already memorized the designs and even considers what images might someday suit himself or Jill, treating tattooing as a possible way of giving visible form to a particular life.

Yet Mike finds Patricia’s distinctiveness in more than the illustrations. He notices her face, voice, and individual character, and understands the tattoos as part of the life that has marked her. When he restores the pictures in his mind, the gesture does not undo his recognition of the person beneath them; the two perceptions remain connected. For Jill, too, affection for Patricia is not dependent on how she looks. The narrative presents the images as an element of a self, not a substitute for one.

From public display to shared trust

The tattoos remain present when Patricia’s relationship with Mike and Jill changes. After the three share water, Patricia is welcomed as their water brother, a bond Jill explains as an enduring commitment of trust. Mike offers the water, and Patricia accepts it willingly. The exchange makes her a partner in a relationship that, as Jill describes it, is serious and cannot be casually broken; the Great Project is thus carried by someone whose connection to the couple has become more intimate than the public display of her religious identity.

Later, Patricia shows Ben Caxton the Nest’s Innermost Temple, a circular room with a central pool where new brothers are received. Her own authority in the community is not limited to her tattoos: she is ordained, teaches beginners’ classes in Martian, and helps novitiate brothers. Working with Dawn and Jill, she also uses her recognized Fosterite standing to explain that participation in the Church of All Worlds need not conflict with the faith. The pictures are one part of a broader role in which Patricia teaches, welcomes, and connects communities.

The Great Project’s significance lies in this combination of record and relationship. It preserves Fosterite history as images on a living body, supports Patricia’s work as a performer and teacher, and makes her devotion publicly recognizable. At the same time, the novel resists reducing her to the spectacle the tattoos create: Mike and Jill see the person whose history the pictures carry, and Patricia’s place among them comes through chosen trust as well as religious affiliation.