The Girl Who Cried Champagne

Acrylic and graphite on BFK Rives paper, framed and floated on a white mat behind museum glass.
When I moved to a new home in the spring of 2020 during lockdown, the world looked grim, dark, and very uncertain. It also rained ... a lot. As a way to cope, I clung to every shred of beauty and goodness I could find. One morning, the sun broke through, and I saw a beautiful cherry tree in full bloom outside our front door. Maybe it was the juxtaposition of those blooms against all the uncertainty, but I found myself drawn to them in a powerful way. There was joy and beauty, yes, but also poignancy. Time and the world never stand still, as much as we keep wanting them to, and that makes the sweet moments ever so fragile. This went much deeper than cherry blossoms, of course, and I turned to music to help me explore what was going on. I painted to songs by female jazz composers, and what emerged was a need to say goodbye to “playing small,” being made invisible—an identity I, like too many other women of a certain age, unwittingly took on due to social conventions. I turned toward renewal and quiet strength, even in its delicacy, even in the midst of turmoil. Each painting conveys a tension—between death and life, dark and light, sorrow and joy, and oh, so many other things. As time passes, and I immerse more deeply, I’m realizing I’m reclaiming pink the same way I’m reclaiming myself as a woman during a tumultuous time for all women in the US. Forget about turning away from pink. I’m celebrating it. (And it has nothing to do with Barbie.)