Persevere, 2020

Digital drawings

10” x 10” each, total 33

2020 was known as The Year of the Woman and the 100th anniversary of women securing the right to vote. But it will go down in history as the year COVID19 devastated the world. And the year George Floyd’s death ignited protests and riots in Minneapolis and many cities across the country and around the world. As an artist and a human being, the effect of these events on me was a profound sorrow and paralysis. Persevere is work I made in July, 2020, my birth month, as an attempt to revive my creative juices. I challenged myself to draw one mandala a day. Creating a mandala is a contemplative process, and a meditative way to center and rediscover joy in art making. It was a much needed escapist practice that helped me to refocus so that I could once again begin working on my grant project.