December 2024: Breaking Into Beautiful
In the beginning of 2023, I was struggling with a deep level of depression, different from what I had experienced before, even compared to some of the lowest moments throughout my illness. Somehow, in that fog of grief and pain, I was able to submit an application for a show at The Overture Center. A few months later I received an email congratulating me on my acceptance to their winter exhibition in Dec 2024-Mar 2025. I now had a deadline, and a year and a half to create my first intentional collection!
This project took me on an intense personal healing journey as I explored how to rearrange the broken parts of myself into someone unimagined and whole. This inner work is ongoing and I suspect it will be for the rest of my life.
My painting process is very intimate. I spend months getting to know each of these beings and listening to their stories. I am immersed in the details of their physical bodies: how her eyelid crease leans slightly to the right, how her jawline disappears into her neck, how the cartilage in her ear is as unique as a fingerprint, and how the light on her lips can change her expression to reveal an emotion I didn’t see before. Simultaneously, I can feel my own body and emotions shifting, clarifying, deepening, releasing. I am co-creating with the energy of these beings and often I don’t know where they end and I begin. Sometimes I take photos of myself to use as reference when I’m trying to figure out how her arm should look, or where her neck should connect with her shoulder. This truly blurs the space between me and the painting.
Last week I spent the day with some amazing women hanging our show I am sharing the space with pastel artist Elizabeth Tuttle and I believe we were perfectly matched. Since then, every time someone asks about my show I get choked up and tears start falling. This is going to sound whackadoodle, but I’ve made a promise to myself to let my freak flag fly on the off chance that doing so will help someone else feel seen. There’s a lot going on for me behind the tears and I’m still processing what it all means. I keep thinking about this quote by Elizabeth Stone: “Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” In this case it was making the decision to share my art publicly.
However, what is most present for me is picturing my paintings alone, just hanging in a dark hallway, wondering how they got there and why I abandoned them. I keep feeling their vulnerability as they gaze across the gallery at one another. Again I wonder where they end and I begin.
If you are in Madison, please do me a favor and go visit them. I’d love to hear your thoughts! Our show, Breaking Into Beautiful, officially opened on Tues 12/10th. The reception for all the winter exhibits will be Jan 17th. I plan to keep pushing myself out of my comfort zone so I will be giving my first artist talk (wish me luck!).