My mother taught me how to be a woman.

Follow in her footsteps to take charge of my life.

She taught me to see myself through the eyes of men who had caused her so much harm so that I would never have to experience any of the pain she did.

To not walk alone at night,

have eyes in the back of my head,

and charm my way into and out of a situation.

I can’t even put chapstick on in public without turning heads.

She taught me to cover up

not because I should hide my body,

but because of the eyes that will tear my clothes apart with their stare.

Always

have an escape plan,

Don’t

talk to strange men,

except for if ignoring them will make matters worse, then adorn my fakest smile and continue on my way avoiding the tension all together.

She taught me how to take care of people, often more than myself.

She showed me how to rage my emotions like a wildfire, engulfing anything in sight,

so ferocious that you can't look away.

She taught me that having empathy and being weak are not synonymous.

There is a way to fight malice in this world while remaining soft.

That it is a privilege to feel every emotion so intensely.

My thesis project Witches, Whores, and Monsters is a critique of the patriarchy, and how it seeps into even the smallest parts of women’s and fem-presenting people’s lives. It is extremely important in my practice to create space for women to feel heard and represented in the art world – this goes beyond just leveling the playing field. As Andrea Dworkin said, “Men often react to women’s words – speaking and writing – as if they were acts of violence, sometimes men react to women's words with violence. So we lower our voices. Women whisper. Women apologize. Women shut up. Women trivialize what we know. Women shrink. Women pull back.” I believe there is strength in being soft. However, there is a point where the line must be crossed for our own well-being. We must speak our truths and sometimes we are not able to be soft in this pursuit. Our words and actions will be sharp and rabid as a response to the pain that has been placed onto our bodies and minds from being gaslit by patriarchal systems. My work is a safe space for the feminine experience.