The Seeds We Leave Behind...

This painting is about Survival

This painting is about Hope

This painting is about Survival

This painting is about Hope

This painting is about Survival

This painting is about Hope

The Willow Arts Community's Annual Unscene Exhibit 2025

Survival as in what we do to ourselves to survive a world on fire and the trauma we experience. Survival as in the responsibility we have to ourselves, and our relationships, to unearth the parts of us that we abandoned in order to survive. Survival as in the accountability to the role we play within our own suffering and the suffering of others. Surviving as inheritance, which is for me as a white settler, the responsibility of unlearning and leaving behind the inherited violence of colonialism. Survival as in recognizing kinship and not abandoning others to death in order to save ourselves. Survival as in continuation, as in refusing to give up. Survival as in surviving is only a part of a whole, as in a fork in the road where existence is forced to diverge into two separate paths: one that leads to death, and one that leads to life - both continuations of a cycle. Survival as in choice, as in choosing the path that leads to Life, and ending the cycles of violence that lead to death. 

Hope as in that glimmer of life that is so profoundly painful to hold onto when violence continuously tries to rip it from your hands. Hope as in the joys and wonders that violence often forces into hiding, that is turned into secrecy and hidden beneath the surface. Hope as in dreaming. Hope as in the seed of possibility. Hope as in the call to healing, a promise of softness and the space to freely exist. Hope as in celebration. Hope as in change and the courage to face the unknown. Hope as in humility and understanding of who we are in this forest of life. Hope as in, no matter how hard, how violently, how cruelly, forces try to destroy, it remains. Hope as in strength, not fragility; as in courage, not whatever is easiest. Hope as in Truth, as in a Knowing that goes beyond our bones and into the Earth and into the Water. 

I want to keep writing this. I want more than anything to have the time and mental space to keep writing until i have made sense of what i am trying to say but my brain is done with words. There are no more words, we do not have the capacity to translate our experience into words anymore. This is supposed to go up today, the 29th, the day that the exhibition starts as there is a QR code for the "full artist statement" which is supposed to be an essay that makes coherent sense, pictures of the process, list of references and sources, and all the books i read and music i listened to while working on this... but i haven't had time to do any of that processing. I have not been ok for some time and in making this painting it's become abundantly clear that i need to. Instead of giving you the full statement now, i'm going to work on it and will add it as soon as i can but for now, i will leave you with the words that have been rolling around in my head since reading them, and words i desperately needed to hear in order to slow down: “...when we get tired we do not make good decisions and decisions have consequences” (Patty Krawec, The Shores of the Sea blog post 05/18/25, Thousand Worlds Blog) Go read her blog instead.