With my children

This photo was taken in Brooklyn by Brett Adamek before I moved to New Mexico.

On the left: palimpsest (2010) 2 panels 10in x 30in each, fabric, acrylic on canvas. “A Tissue of Lies? Could there be a more persuasively apt title for a memoir? Particularly if the rememberer of his paste is referring not so much to his own lies but to those of others…. ‘Paper, parchment, etc., prepared for writing on and wiping out again, like a slate’ and ‘a parchment, etc., which has been written upon twice; the original writing having been rubbed out.’ This is pretty much what my kind of writer does anyway. Starts with life; makes a text; then a re-vision—literally, a second seeing, an afterthought, erasing some but not all of the original while writing something new over the first layer of text.” —Gore Vidal, Palimpsest: A Memoir

On the right: healing (2009) 5ft (60in) x 6ft (72in), fabric, oil, acrylic on canvas. This piece came with me across the country. I began work on it during a fast and had to pause creation until I was eating again; the amount of physical energy required to work on this piece - which is larger than me - was intense. This piece is part of the Awakenings series and was embedded with an intention - or prayer, if you will. Not long after I finished it, a miracle did indeed happen - for only a brief moment, and against all odds.

And on me: Perpetua (2010) 7in x 24in, acrylic, fabric on canvas. A married and nursing woman, Perpetua was martyred in the Roman province of Carthage, in Africa, along with her slave, Felicity, sometime in the 3rd century’s first decade. Perpetua kept a journal while imprisoned, recording several visions that she believed foreshadowed her death and ascent to heaven. It is considered to be one of the earliest surviving texts written by a Christian woman.