The Holding Space Collection was created as an act of love to myself and to you, and is dedicated to emotional presence throughout the mental health journey.
“Holding space” for someone means being physically, mentally, or emotionally present for them, focusing on them, and reserving judgment as you do so (source). This title beautifully captures the essence of this collection as I’ve created it. We all know how difficult it can be to be present in this busy world. It can also be hard to withhold judgment of yourself and others when difficult emotions crop up. But something truly beautiful happens as we are present and we do withhold judgment. Inspiration came for each of these works during quiet moments when I was finally willing to hold space for myself.
Over the last year, I’ve been in a new phase of healing. Slowly, my healing began to creep its way into my artwork. Day after day inspiration for a drawing bloomed in my mind, an image to represent the emotion I was experiencing or a principle I was learning in that moment. I jotted down a long list of phrases to come back to when I had a minute to sit down in my studio. Before I knew it, a whole body of work was forming.
As I considered where this body of work might lead, I heavily weighed the options of creating this whole collection on a larger scale, in paint or some other medium. But the longer I sat with each piece and the more I tried to force them into other mediums (believe me, I tried), the more they felt complete in their original drawing form. These works are my thoughts on paper, created in the moment I was able to allow myself to feel them out. My attempts trying to replicate that process in a larger scale or a different medium never ended up with the richness or clarity the original drawings had. In these drawings, you’ll see the bones of the drawings, the places I started drawing only to decide to move in a different direction, and the underlying marks of trial and error in the effort of working out my thoughts more completely.
Most of the works are in greyscale, in graphite, on paper. A couple include other mediums like paint to bring the concept of the work across more completely. The completed original works were pages torn from my sketchbooks and tweaked a bit more until they felt polished and complete.
You’ll see a variety of shapes, sizes, ages, and racial backgrounds of the women included in this collection. I was very intentional about portraying a variety of women in this collection because it is important to me to show the collective humanity in our struggles. Just as we can all struggle, we can all benefit from the healing that comes through a little extra kindness and generosity as we hold space for ourselves and one another.
My art was informed by several mental health principles like grief, trauma, mindfulness, and inner child work as well as my own experiences of grieving a loved one’s passing, coping with every day mental health struggles, and healing from past experiences. My story is delicately threaded through each piece of this collection, which has made it a little bit hard to let go of. I intended to release this collection in the fall of 2020, but a few life events got in the way. Looking back I could see that both the work and myself weren’t ready yet. I wasn’t ready to share my story with you then, but I am now. There is power in uncovering and stepping into your own story. And I believe that the closer you get to sharing your own story, the closer you get to uncovering universal truth. My hope is that these works speak truth to your heart and soul.
One piece of the Holding Space collection will be released each day beginning May 24th, 2021 and ending June 3rd, 2021, when all 11 drawings will be available here on my website. Subscribe to my newsletter below for previews of the listings before they are live.
xoxo,
UPDATE: The collection is here! See what’s available under "Shop."