I am creating images in a way a man cannot. I am screaming with my mouth shut.
My "New Work" was made the day after Valentine’s Day 2020. I had a deep sense of urgency to create this and to see what result I might have. It was a vision of the process, but not the outcome.
 
This is a work that has many layers of meaning for me.

I regularly remind myself of how lucky and grateful I am I have all of my fingers and my toes. All of my body which does, for the most part, what I would like it to do. I think about how I might create if I didn’t have all of my appendages. Where else can I hold a brush. Chuck Close has famously held his paint brush in his mouth. As a regular practitioner of yoga, I thought my vagina would hold my brush.

The impetus for the work has come from a convergence of many things. I had started to read “Invisible Women, Exposing Data Bias a in a World Designed For Men” by Caroline Criado Perez. Toward the end of 2019 I saw dedicated exhibitions at Musée d’Orsay featuring Berthe Morisot and Tracey Emin that have become highly influential in my thought process on how I view art and read about it.  I also had a cough for about a month that has not gone away with antibiotics, or over-the-counter medicine, or homeopathy. I have turned to the teaching of Louise Hay and a cough is; “a desire to bark at the world; Listen to me!”

The first six images might have been some beginner’s luck, however I continued to paint, and paint this way. It is very physically taxing, frustrating, and exciting. But I am persistent to find my voice through this work.