"Love Thyself"
24" x 24"
Acrylics & Collage
© 2007
This piece is about being able to look yourself square in the face and love the person that you see; not despite your flaws and the mistakes you've made along the road, but because of them. In (one of the many interpretations of) dream analysis, the kiss symbolizes a deeply spiritual, rather than a physical, connection. In dreaming of a deep kiss with another person, that person represents a facet of yourself that you desire to embrace. In this piece I embrace myself willingly and attempt to repair the many "breaks" in my heart with a needle and thread. The strongly feminine colors and imagery alludes to issues implanted since childhood with my own femaleness that I have finally learned not just to accept but to embrace. My left-hand "self" clutches a grade-school photo of myself, the pure and uncorrupted soul, the physical evidence of the "inner child," who has somehow managed to survive the past four decades. Are we protecting her, or is she the strong one here? Torn mementos from my childhood are embedded into the scarred vaginal red heart and the delicate little-girl's-room-pink of its interior... a reminder of a time that was often horrible, sometimes wonderful, but thankfully is over forever, and has shaped me into who I am today.
