Abstract self-portrait of acrylic marker, cork, and copper.
This piece symbolizes my inner work process with the racism I
experienced by a foster mother who made my sister and I bleach our
elbows in lemon halves as depicted by the figure’s highlighted elbows.
The elbow mountains represent the struggles I continue to overcome
with internalized racism as a result of her forcing this particular racist
practice and its message on us. The lemon head represents the psychic
internalization of that conditioning; the splitting of the head a symbol
of my own split from that paradigm, with the lime emerging from the

split lemon head. The opening of the lemon with the emergent lime
also represents my ability to hold the complexity of my relationship
with my foster Mom who also offered her rescuing love in the form of
the best Iced Tea made with her rescuing love, the mint from her
garden and of course, lemon & lime. The lime, a favorite addition of
mine, represents my ability to transform the wounds of racism.

Mixture of acrylic paint and markers. Breathing Grief is a self-portrait of
grief as a paradoxical life force and life-defying energy.
At the age of two, after losing my family, my home, language and
culture, along with the experience of foster care, disenfranchised grief
became the only oxygen available to me.

Having become a ward of the state, my grief, having been denied me by
all who were meant to, “foster care," became contrarily, inaccessible to
me and also pervasive in my life.
Breathing Disenfranchised Grief is an expression of my voice, memory,
story, tears, loss and heartache, that was stolen from me. It is a
statement of how my mind and body safeguarded my grief in the only
way it could; through disconnect from myself and the world, until I was
ready and able to reclaim and honor it.

The Me Veneration is a mixed media self-portrait utilizing
charcoal, colored charcoal pencils, hymn lyrics, fire and found objects.
This is a piece that spanned two decades of inner work which ultimately
emerged as an abstract collage self-portrait. It pays homage to the
Orphan’s experience of exile, freedom, and the earned power of
transcendence and redemptive self-love.

Charcoal, acrylic, portrait of an Ancestor who embodies both shadow
and light; a reminder of the necessity of both elemental forces.

This is an emergent mixed media self-portrait collage of acrylic,
collected pieces of junk jewelry and found objects. It symbolizes the
Indigenous Mind that is a part of each of us. The small free floating
figure acknowledges the Indigenous mind, that we as a society and as
individuals will never fully recover. Fortunately, some part remains and
we must honor its voice and presence as ever so relevant. The profile
which emerged organically as I worked this piece and it worked on me I
can only describe as a channeling of my own Indigenous Mind.

Mixed media self-portrait collage of acrylic, collected/found objects &
deconstructed jewelry. Of Myth and Matter represents my self-
development process through the use of my recurring childhood
dream. It is a Mythic story rich with recurring themes and symbolism
that I use to view my wounds and personal history from various
perspectives within the story. The practice of using of one’s childhood
dream or memory can assist us in deconstructing our most core
wounds.