Tomorrow I’m getting on a plane and taking the trip of a lifetime!
About a month and a half ago, or so… a curator contacted me through my Instagram account to offer me an opportunity to show some work in a group show in an art gallery in Milan, Italy.
Yes… Milan, ITALY!
At first I didn’t really believe it… over the years a number of people have reached out to me offering to promote my work, or buy work… who are little more than scam artists. So many in fact, that I’m more than a little skeptical and jaded when it comes to something that seems too good to be true. However, after some investigation, the curator and the gallery were legit, and it was a real opportunity!
The show I’m participating in is called Coming Out, and the idea behind this show is how artists use their work to reveal themselves… to Come Out. For this show I’ve submitted three pieces from my Not Broken Anymore collection. These pieces, as well as the rest of the collection of work that I’ve been working on for the past two years, are really important to me as they are my way of breaking the silence behind my past of trauma and abuse that I suffered as a young girl. I started the collection because I was tired of keeping quiet, tired of protecting those who failed to protect me when I was young and vulnerable.
Not Broken Anymore, speaks to the truth that you can rise up in spite of some truly awful events and heal and become whole. Looking at the way I was adding the paper to the pieces, I realized that I was high lighting the fractured sense of self that comes as a result of severe trauma, but even with all the tiny fissures and fractures, I’m still whole… there can still be beauty in my world.
I still have a desire to show the entire collection in a gallery, as a solo exhibit… but this is a great opportunity to not only show my work to a whole different audience, but to break the silence around abuse because it is something that happens far too often to far too many people. My goal with the collection was to use my work to heal, and maybe by opening up a dialogue through imagery I can help others find healing as well.
