i have found that the way to be comfortable with being alive, the way to find peace and contentment, the way to love my mind, is by connecting to the parts that make me, me. connecting is accepting and understanding and loving all the parts of me and letting them shine when they need to shine and guiding them when they need to be guided. it requires being vulnerable with my own self which in turn requires strength and the ability to surrender to my suffering. it is when i feel connected within my own self, that i feel peace. the insecure, hurt parts of me calm down. i begin to feel safe. this set of paintings represents a conversation between a young part of me (represented by a depiction of a stuffed animal that i have projected this part onto) and an ego part of me. this interaction, which occured throughout most of my life, has now come to a resolution (more than ever before). this diptych serves to honor that. rather than remembering these parts of me through the lens of shame, i remember them through nothing but the eyes of love. these are the parts that did their best to keep me alive and safe, and now they can rest.

medium: oil paint on gessobord.
dimensions: forty eight by thirty six by two inches.