Integration
The last drawing before I move
Integration
42.5 x 56 inches
Lead on Photographic Print / Archival Pigment Inks on Epson Somerset Velvet (255 gsm) 100% Cotton Rag Fine Art Paper
2026 (video playing at 1.5 speed)
A few years ago, I spent time in Rome photographing walls along side streets, anywhere I could get lost, particularly around the Corso. I’ve always been fascinated by Rome’s history and its symbolic use of color. I wanted the weight of many coats of paint over centuries as the foundation of this piece.
Rome holds a special place in my heart. I found myself there as a woman in my late teens. It represents a good kind of home, something I’ve carried with me and that has carried me.
Years before this drawing, I returned to the Pennsylvania woods where I spent my childhood. I lay in the same ferns that cradled me then. I was on the cusp of understanding something I’d been searching for my entire life: that the mirror, the witness, the recognition I needed… it would never exist outside myself. I had to become that.
The flamingo has appeared in my work for years. As archetype and self-portrait.
Fifteen months ago, the vision for this drawing came. I didn’t know it would be the last piece I’d finish in this studio.
I drew myself lying in those childhood ferns, surrounded by flowers from my current garden. My face here is a much younger version of myself from memory, one holding the wonder of what’s to come. My eyes are closed and I imagine, in spirit, surrendered. I’m cradling an enormous flamingo, a fiercer side of me, whose neck wraps behind me and emerges on the other side.
The flamingo's eyes are sharp, fierce but knowing. She’s spent a lifetime ready to fight. But here, she’s letting herself be held. Both sides of me, finally met. Both surrendered to integration.
Past (Pennsylvania ferns), formation (Roman walls), present (garden flowers), all held together. Drawn on the foundation of the place that held my becoming.
The timing: I started this near the beginning of a transformation and am finishing it at the end of the chrysalis.
The figure and the flamingo have always been the same being. I move to the new space this month.
This piece is available here.