Hey Everyone!
Happy weekend! I'm just getting around to blogging about something really cool that happened for me last weekend. Our Six Strong collaborative mural was installed on the side of Everyday Wine on Alberta street here in Portland! This is a project that was organized through Alberta Art Works, an organization trying to get more public art into the Alberta neighborhood. Six local female artists were chosen to work on this project, and I was honored to be one of them. Each of us was given a 4'x8' panel to paint on. Anything we wanted (within reason - no nudity!) that related to the (very broad) theme of female empowerment.
Here's a couple of the thoughts behind my panel:
1. You can feel strong, capable, liberated, empowered, and independent, but also present and identify yourself as super "femme" at the same time. Break the molds, break through stereotypes, break the glass ceiling. But feel that it's also ok to paint your nails and wear pink and glitter along the way, if it makes you feel good to do those things. It should be considered a legit choice to be a super badass and also glittery if you want to be glittery. Hence, the colors in my panel are all pinks, and all the skin tones of the women are painted with pink glitter. I'm hoping the sparkle shows up more when the late afternoon sun shines directly on the mural.
2. We are strong through each other and through our communities. I liked the imagery that came up when I thought about women very literally, lifting each other up to positions of greater power and strength. We can do it (together!)
SO SO excited to have finished and installed not one but TWO pieces of actual public art up in this city in the last month!! YAY PUBLIC MURAL STUFF!! Not that I don't like the residential indoor ones, but it has definitely been a dream of mine to make more public work. So YAY dreams coming true and stuff.
Happy fourth everyone!
