Reclaimed Heart 2

From the Artist: In March, 2020 the pandemic launched me into a creative nosedive. As my social media feeds filled up with examples of other people's creative efforts, my own creativity had disappeared. I packed up my paints and put away my brushes. I felt a little desperate. I decided if I was going to make it through this pandemic I needed to just keep working and trust that eventually I'd feel inspired again. I had a pile of panels ready to go. Every day I forced myself to take a little action. I gessoed the panels. I bought wood for supports. I painted and made collages in my journals. I kept telling myself to trust the process. On a whim one day I decided to paint a series of hearts. I'm not sure why I decided on hearts - it seemed out of the ordinary for me. But I decided to run with it. I think having that design element in place allowed me to just focus on the process of painting, which proved to be quite therapeutic. I brushed on paint and scraped it off. I used nails and the end of my paintbrush to carve designs in the paint, then glazed over them. I added bits of paper with my handwriting for more texture. I called my series "Reclaimed Hearts" because I felt like my paintings were letting me reclaim pieces of myself that had gotten lost in the upheaval of the pandemic. It started to feel like I was piecing myself back together, bit by bit.