48"x48" acrylic on canvas, 2018
 
Aligned with activist Tarana Burke’s Me Too Movement and the collective consciousness leading to the Women’s March of 2017, I raised my hand along with most of my sister circle to raise awareness of the experiences of assault, harassment, or rape. At times it can feel like being female and being believed are mutually exclusive, like our gendered demographic is silenced, blamed, gaslit into believing we are the problem, we aren’t the victim… This piece grappled with years of what I wrongly believed - within my world and within my primary relationship - and it grappled with generations of women not believed. The black and bleeding red and contrast to brighter hues are meant to carry intensity, urgency… Like a sea of knitted hats against a bright winter sky, through bright pink and bright blue, this canvas also presents hope for what I believed could be possible someday if achieved through persistence and peace.  There are marks like botanical growths - black vines painted over a busy backdrop and partially covered again; and etched lines emerging in the negative space bringing color and complexity forward from the darkness. Through subsequent campaign years, I have again believed that an educated and experienced female could and would rise to lead us. I believed it for myself and for my biracial daughters. Yet sobering reality sends us back. I anchor in these tumultuous times through art, back to the blank canvas to begin again from where we are, because with determination we rise.