US **Trial Proofs**

3-Color Linoleum Block Print on French Paper

18 x 12 inches

2020

Edition Size 48

A "trial proof" (TP) is a test print created by an artist during the production process of a limited edition print, allowing them to experiment with variations in color, composition, or other elements before finalizing the edition

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My new print, US, is about friendship, love and camaraderie. The pandemic is revealing how truly interconnected and interdependent we are as human beings and the importance of having emotional bonds across our support networks. Over the last few years, I have been healing from womb trauma that I feel is generational. Much of my healing process has happened through being in community with womxn of color who are knowledge keepers and culture keepers around how to heal our insides. I’ve been working on listening more to my uterus and my vulva to hear what it might need. This print celebrates my healing journey as I move into right relationship with my body and I learn to listen to it more. That also means learning to rest, replenish, and clear out the energy that sits in my gut, my heart, and my womb. 

As I’m reclaiming my body and developing a new relationship with it, I’m doing so in community with others who are also healing from their past. For half of my life, I was silent about my body trauma, yet now I understand that I did not have a healthy relationship to sex. I used it to numb myself instead of to learn about myself. This was largely due to lacking sex education and growing up in an immigrant culture that was very sex negative. My ancestors have been so violated and in some ways, they shut down their sexual energies. So I’m on a journey to fully reclaim it and enjoy this body of mine.

Over the last six years, through therapy, somatic coaching, movement, sexual healing, psychedelics, exercise and transitioning to plant based, I've been healing my relationship to my vulva, my uterus and my gut. Some of these body parts are rarely talked about in our culture, they are either deemed ugly or hypersexual. So I’ve had to unlearn those messages and instead move towards my new shape. This new piece honors the healing that we do in community.